= August: Year-day 229 Mr. and Mrs. Goldfinch dine on a thistle, a Canadian Bull, just west of our apartment, now and then notes of their whistles lightly passing in to chase out the dour. Janice and I chuckle watching them, him in particular, as they flick down, poking for seeds, and the whisked down graphs a wind's whim and the seeds crack as if/ on fire & smoking. Olive-green yellow, charcoal black and white, Mrs. appropriately harder to see; Mr. (for courting) white, black, yellow bright, roller-coastering in neat reverie. Some things are especially to delight: Mr. and Mrs. Goldfinch and, sometimes, we. (1976 and 2007-08-31) ------------------------------------ about American Goldfinch Brian A. J. Salchert
Thinking Lizard
About Me
- brian (baj) salchert
- Rhodingeedaddee is my node blog. See my other blogs and recent posts.
Friday, August 31, 2007
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= September: Year-day 250 If what I write strengthens your spirit, peaches! Each of us leans on his inner resources. So if what I write/ by enchantments reaches and fortifies your life against remorses conspiriing to end it, sunlight and breezes you let down your hair or take off your shirt to enjoy. Pain dissolved by touch that pleases, sound and sense right, is anyone's desert. Sure, we would all like to be more aware, not miss the need in the tone of a word or a laugh or the movement of/ a finger, walk with a friend through cresting white warm air saving each other's life; but truth's deferred often from us/ though we thoughtfully linger. (4-11-77; but the virgules and italics were added in September of 2003) ------------------------------------ Wyoming Uplift Organization Brian A. J. Salchert
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= October: Year-day 289 Mysteries of the mind: Entire designs, nuances, descriptions are sometimes dropped unconsciously when a work's set out, stopped for a while, its time, colors and flexed lines considered complete: defined and defined. "A poem is really a kind of machine for producing the poetic state of mind by means of words," Valéry has said. Keen. The mind is a desert challenging rain. Joint by joint the syllables race and brake, turn upon each other, hum in the brain; yet I'm often a shelf for its own sake. Put on me what you will. Empty, unfinished, I'm nonetheless here: rough, but undiminished. (septet: April, 1978) ------------------------------------ on Valéry Brian A. J. Salchert
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= October: Year-day 285 "To John Keats" Brave spellstar, child of magic beauty, arc Eternal of triumphant truth, soft-send Those lyrical effusions we attend-- Owls who pursue the melacholic lark. Wand our sweat into dew. With suns embark, Renewed Olympian; from night unbend Men's hearts. You are th' explorer of his end; The shepherd's flute that stedfast casements mark. Far wing souls' satellites, commuters bright; But yours among the farthest glows, like Ruth, Desiring only that it loves. Unstilled, Majestic; more than mortal, you are light, O ageless youth with aged wisdom filled: In all things Beauty is; in all is Truth. (1962) ------------------------------------ on Keats Brian A. J. Salchert
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= October: Year-day 284 "Sonnet to Shakespeare" O master of the keys, of treasures, lord, A billion crowns in praise upon your head. No, more, since tombs cannot in secrets board Your play, let Hamlets ever hear the dead. Did I say dead? But bones alone must be. What Prospero could die, though buried deep His rod? Yet tempests must on rocks roll sea To wash the world and round it wtih a sleep. O golden globe from whence our day takes life, Spill warmth, throw light for us; unlock your heart Forever, so those jewels will soothe this strife Man bears because his body lacks in art. Sing, bard on Avon born, no songs of death, But pour your poems pure with each man's breath. (12/14/62: on a flyleaf of an "ancient" Hurst & Co. book entitled Shakespeare) ------------------------------------ on Shakespeare Brian A. J. Salchert
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= October: Year-day 281 Homer has/ stormed through all. And so they say: "Pull down your tents. Forget it. Douse your fires. Why should we fight with shadows? Why should we stay, trembling in snow, because we have desires? Pack up your knapsacks, friends; it is no use. Why should we cringe from snakes, battle with flies, or wonder all night if a peg is loose? Why should we starve: to be syllable-wise?" Dante and Shakespeare--they felt that storm too. And did they run from the terrors? Did they swerve? Let us keep our fires; keep our tent ropes new. Words, life, love: if it seems foolish to serve to some, let them pull down their tents; go then. He's thundered round our heads, too, and will again. (circa 1965) ------------------------------------ on Homer Brian A. J. Salchert
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= December: Year-day 363 Read, read out loud, for the sense and the sound: a canyon's long magnificence, the scourgings ot its ancient river, the blare sun/ ground deeply into an earth shocked by its urgings these mean dry weeks; the men alive, then dead. Exploration is but the edge of growth, prime as it is, affirming that you've sped "what-am-I-missing" past, cursing the loath. Read, read out loud, for the mind and the heart and the ways they entwine, light against shade, water with soil, disease measuring health. Happily, it matters less where you start than/ how you move/ to learn where/ the words made/ must bear the ringing/ designs of their wealth. (12-28-76 / 3-26-77 / 12-30-06 / 8-31-07) ------------------------------------ advice from Billy Collins on audibly reading a poem Brian A. J. Salchert
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= December: Year-day 361 Faith: Believing that what is beyond one is also above one; that one, however, is of that; that one's inward eyes are ever smiling with pleased awe at the touch of sun one moves in and is; that no life is done, ever, no work; even the stillborn, clever, odd, the suicides, live on, cannot sever themselves from the whole, the glittering run. O plant a tree in memory of me, make of my body a sparse ring of ashes to benefit the ground around that tree; make of my bones and flesh a memory in the grassy earth where the chipmunk dashes, in the trunk, limbs, branches, twigs, slick green slashes! ------------------------------------ belief systems Brian A. J. Salchert
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= November: Year-day 327 Slowly in his hand the tulip glass swirls the Chateauneuf du Pape, and the wild girls wrestle in the garden and will not stop while the fire in the hearth shrinks into pearls. As fast as he can he spins the blue top and opens his ears to its whirring furls while the peasants dance and harvest each crop his dreams invent in their easy chair shop. Oh if a man could stand and sing and be unto himself a universe, the sea of others he'd need not touch nor once curse nor slantly vow to for better or worse, but simply be terse and enter a tree and drop all his money out of his purse. (11-23-76) ------------------------------------ opinion story found in Huh search Brian A. J. Salchert
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= November: Year-day 308 & what the hell's a good poem anyhow: one whose lightning ruptures its learner's heart, that thunders its curves of emotive thought the range of human hearing; veils its scars? Must dogma be shunned, & bleeding reproved; unique technique & flair given/ the green each age? Few besides those gardeners/ approve leaf & blossom from their diligent seeds? How fashion rules/ & the kings of the past, sanctified, condemned! What it takes to last? I've had it! It just doesn't matter now. I know what I've done/ and expect to do. If you enter my words, you'll measure how/ I am, was, stay, bounteous with/ me / you. ------------------------------------ a contemporary view of the poetry galaxy - (Attend the copyright information.) Brian A. J. Salchert
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= October: Year-day 298 César Vallejo, you are so much! Aye: dios mio. . . . No turn I could make could-- Why do I want to compete with you? My! My, my! What cancers of termites breathe wood! Unknowable stars whirl in/ my frail bones. A music grazes beneath the crisp snow. Tears well/ at the push of your tones. I cannot compete/ with nowhere to go. César Vallejo, Vallejo . . . held soul, too exquisite for a worn Earth, adieu. A saraband laces; the pampas roll; not even the rains can compete with you. Dark, small, fresh blood, fresh life, my one heart's goal. You will plumb and plumb to make our lives true. (2-5-77) ------------------------------------ translating Vallejo interview Brian A. J. Salchert
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= October: Year-day 294 So much has been written, and will be still as tumbleweeds knock at gas station doors, and flat earth quietly puffs to a hill; and macho men, gentled, play on all fours. So much: touting the old; arriving proud, part of the crest of the current; or-- the horse and the crocodile haven't allowed the dalliance of wonder. Write so much more. "Calm is the sea; the waves work less and less." A certain madness rages in the bone. I write because to be, to curse, to bless men's dreams/ such making/ shows faith best. Alone, I'll neither hope nor love; and just to guess--. Encompass us who sail/ the not yet known. (1978, 1979, & 2006; quote: Surrey) ------------------------------------ Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-1547) Brian A. J. Salchert
Thursday, August 30, 2007
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= October: Year-day 292 The Collected Poems of Brian the Split. Why not. Earth has worse fancies to endure. Besides, who's to say anyone for sure is no more than one on the face of it. Rejected as one, rejected as three, the latter at least allows for more laughs as I rhyme and rhythm to nourish me who would blossom in you, unite our graphs. There'll soon be a day when the snow's so dry it grows from my car like a fine white mold, and the swilled airs swallow my human cry at the wonder of it. And I too, cold, flipped Alden St. Cloud, doubting who, where, why. Keys beyond flesh open anything old. (February, 1977) ------------------------------------ sonnets about sonnets Brian A. J. Salchert
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= October: Year-day 286 "What does it matter, friend, how much we dream? A poet's eyes are neither bulbs nor moons. They do not grow, or shine, more than could seem; or pull the green and dying from lagoons. And though his ears may hear, his fingers feel, his tongue may taste, his nose may smell--ist gut-- they do not guide, or teach, or make things real; his heart, if anything, is bitterroot. And what does it matter if he stays at home to nurse a brother lost to blood and phlegm; a poet dies in every worthy poem: and travel with not lessen a one of them." "No, Rome cannot change beauty. You are right. Give Tom my best; and John: thank you. Good night." (circa 1965) ------------------------------------ Keats' Negative Capability Brian A. J. Salchert
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= October: Year-day 275 October, month of changes, touch, change me who so reluctantly displays his fire/ fearing he isn't full enough to be worth seeing, fearing his truths won't inspire, fearing what can be harvested from him it would be better to let rot; to hope next year his form and substance seem less grim to his brown eyes than now / more charged as trope; that imagined rejections he expects will come/ not come, or if they do, not leave him shrinking into hardened ground as though he harbored some disease/ one who inspects would hastily confirm; so ought to grieve, waiting for the saw's screech, the masking snow. (5-29/30-80) . 25+ ?! . (2006: 1-23 & 12-24) ------------------------------------ several bible passages that counter feelings of worthlessness Brian A. J. Salchert
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= September: Year-day 267 Attended a picnic once--it was sunny, breezy, and warm--just nice. We talked and played. The robins crossed and crossed, crossed again, stayed. When it was time to eat, the winds whipped; gunny clouds/ fired pellets of ice at us, barrage after barrage. We crowded under the roof of the open-air pavilion, aloof as stone, grasping our plates and cups. Such gods! Traps we build ourselves, traps built for us, traps our genes and circumstances put us in: stupidity, patience, nerviness, luck, people out to get us; and we, perhaps, out to/ get ourselves. Bells, who knows how thin the air is, a spoken word, one night's tuck! ------------------------------------ FEMA for Kids Brian A. J. Salchert
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= September: Year-day 260 Your shining rings of love move, befuddle me, Saturn, rainbow, chopped tree, swirling oil, pond, and the constant curve of the weeping sea, and the dark faith of the graceful spored frond. Though it painfully matters you're enjoyed where you glisten, chime, & commit your love, enjoyment of you continues devoid of all it should be where reason can't move. Mysteries that make us/ wonder & kneel, rats in our cities of doubful content, shadows of shadows of passing appeal, what holy delvings your circlings have sent!: beginnings & endings underdefined to boggle the limits of my trussed mind. ------------------------------------ planetary rings rainbows + tree rings Brian A. J. Salchert
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= September: Year-day 246 Popcorn and swizzle sticks. Who can I trust? Not myself, certainly, a proven fool, having walked the wrong halls in the wrong schools and darkened my days in these times of dust. Do this! Do that! Hurry! I must! I must! The typewriter ribbon slides from its spool. I'm seldom at ease with the simplest tools. If I don't quit talking, my fork will rust. I know it's a pity bears haven't found where I hide my honey-filled dead tree head even the bees are preparing to leave. When I'm empty, dry, and the only sound I make in the wind is an orange-red spouting smoke, crackling to ash, none will grieve. (9-2-76 / 9-24-76 / 12-23-06) ------------------------------------ self-pity Brian A. J. Salchert
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
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= August: Year-day 243 It is now November twenty-fifth, Jamie, I don't mind telling you. Time is a pointless contrivance, no matter it's a bit gamey for me to be doing as I am. Jointless, unattached, the parts of a man might fly who knows how far, claim a sea there, a mountain here, send an eye to a just-forming sky, a tongue to the soul of a crystal fountain. Kneel beside the meadowlark's tufted nest pictured here in this book of U.S. birds. For fantasies we often/ have no words. What now is worst/ tomorrow may be best. Bow to the East? Bless the funereal West? Singular, alien, we move in herds. ------------------------------------ fantasy art, poems, and Brian A. J. Salchert
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= August: Year-day 236 Of course I want to kill and kill, and have, though the bodies of my victims live on because I soften each thrust with a salve: a vaseline, a lie: I come upon. Of course you have been killed by me, and will, though you may not have noticed, and may not, clambering to beat each other up a spill; I'll zigzag to rattle you off your spot. This purgatory's not for after life, since equal chances for heaven and hell are hidden in it. So watch what you do. Though every moment's a blessing: knife and fork and spoon: I need, we'll know who fell-- unless we each to each here/ keep each new. ------------------------------------ kindness quotes Brian A. J. Salchert
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= August: Year-day 233 Precursor, owl of serendipity, razor's edge of inter/personal signs, image of you I follow/ by the sea: here, with the dying of summer, it is time to make a position statement: This land of mine, this U.S.A., is being lawed into schizophrenia, a scarred band of murderers, no matter there's/ a Lord. For pierced ears she needs her parents consent; to end her pregnancy she doesn't. Gay, he's hated by/ some Christians. I dissent. Our shadows scurry around in a daze. Miss Liberty's torch/ breaks off; shatters eyes. Miss Justice, no longer blind, isn't wise. ------------------------------------ social, political, anti-war poems Brian A. J. Salchert
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= August: Year-day 227 Many of these sonnets many may say are but fair rhymed prose, sing-songs for a nose to snub; will not see here any repose of light or wall-shattering, sharp foray or honest, caring touch; will mark the day each was written for/ among the lost. Those, however right they are, let us suppose these sonnets will outlive, as thoughts we pray. How fervently I dream a perfect love is entering my life, not just a wisp of beauty I'm barely/ able to see; how darkly I likewise dream/ others shove me into death/ with poetries more crisp. When I tell you I'm insane, believe me. ------------------------------------ Neurotic Poets Brian A. J. Salchert
Sunday, August 26, 2007
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= July: Year-day 212 In China last night many were told: take to the streets: sleep there, the officials fearing aftershocks from the tyrannous earthquake; in Montreal a bantam Russian, hearing the judges decisioned against him, judges immediately booed by the crowd, turned from the ring/ crying, conceding why/ grudges come/ when fate keeps the gold one's duly earned. Misfortunes of nature and politics will ever be with us I guess, I guess. We'll never untangle the in/out mess that's life for us humans where the burr pricks. Yet our candles light because they have wicks, and there's more than enough/ to praise, confess. ------------------------------------ William Morris's News from Nowhere Brian A. J. Salchert
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= July: Year-day 202 And unimaginably far away galaxies of burnt-out stars litter space and the ripened blossom of our small race shocks fruition with its naivete. Yet future's future, still, we scheme, project. And what sweet bloom/ doesn't want to/ die proud? Soon Machina sapiens, crying loud, may demand more praise than we now expect. But if what I am is a preparation for the beginnings of a deeper nation, so be it, so be it, so let it be. This work and my others will then ascend as bodies of love between friend and friend, and my race blessed/ for how well it can see. ------------------------------------ Kazem Sadegh-zadeh, MD on Machina sapiens --a translation-- Read only. Brian A. J. Salchert
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
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Regarding This Journal = Entry 18 [ last modified: 2008-08-02 ] For as long as I am able to maintain it, this Sprintedon Hollow webbed log will persist in AOL space. I cannot be sure what directions it will walk. I do know it will no longer walk some of those it has walked. Fewer directions should equal easier touring. More photos are likely. § Of the 9 books of my poems presently here: - Begun in 2006, This Day's Poem is the shortest. It did not exist as an entity before this "sw". Two of its poems are in this journal's initial entry. 40 poems are in this e-chap. 1 Begun in 1976, 1976 Today is 2 the longest, presently consisting of 353 sonnets. The original, which was first published in 1980 in the cassette medium, had 366 sonnets. Over the years, I chose to be a somewhat isolate poet, creating my own press: Thinking Lizard. In tandem with it (for about five years) I used a pen name: Alden St. Cloud. The press and the pen name, I believe, were conceived in 1979. 49 selections from this book are in this August 2007 archive. Rooted Sky, which contains one letter, is my first public book of poems. It was published in November of 1972. In 1981 I republished it as a Thinking Lizard cassette book authored by Alden St. Cloud. In this journal it is Rooted Sky 2007. 3 Postures, first published in 1980 as a Thinking Lizard cassette book authored by Alden St. Cloud, is in this journal entitled: Postures 2007. 4 After entering the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1965, I attempted to write an epic entitled Onefor. Only Book I of it was completed. My mentor, the late George Starbuck, dissuaded me from continuing that project, and talked me into writing something more personal. Along with a Prologue stanza and an Epilogue stanza by Alden St. Cloud and "Incantation", my first tonal/phonetic poem, that variously-revised project is here as Justan Tamarind. 5 What resulted from my mentor's push was quite unlike the failed epic other than that it also is at base a narrative. I imagined "myself" taking a long walk through part of my hometown, beginning it with an injunction to "myself" to heed "the now, what is". Its opening words are: Ring the bridge rail! Though it may not be obvious, what I was telling "myself" was to rap that rail with my knuckles, making it ring, since that particular rail was hollow. Did doing so hurt one's knuckles? Yes. I entitled it Fond du Lac. 6 In its present form a quote from T. S. Eliot's East Coker and a Prologue precede it. Lines from it were published in Wisconsin Review and in my hometown's newspaper. It too became a TL ASC cassette in 1980. In 1974 and 1975 I put together a book of 33 prayer poems--which earlier today I found out is/ 7 fewer than are in tdp. However, Prayers in December is longer by 2 7 entries. Both are e-chaps, but I call pind a chapel book. This past June I was on some unknown mental acid. My crazy intent was to write 3 stylistically-divergent-for-me poems each day. I didn't quite, but managed to net an 85-poem book: June 2007. 8 The last is a work of sets of poems, a set being a group of 6 or more poems with something in common which allows them to be seen as a set. While I may add other sets to it, I consider it a completed work. The 5 sets now in it are not like each other, and when each was created I had no idea I would place it with other sets in a book, especially one entitled Sets. 9 Brian A. J. Salchert
Saturday, August 18, 2007
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= May: Year-day 131 The world is full of recipes I'd just as soon forget, and full again of others I'd just as soon remember; let the dust hide, or not, whether grandmother's or mother's or Aristotle's or yours or mine. I'm told there are large carnivores and small birds dying out; that somewhere too soon in time die this Earth's needed elements, and words. The usual, usual: Synergetics, pyramid strength, Findhorn and Lindisfarne, the double helix, cloning, cybernetics, cryogenics, black holes, painting the barn, tush, Steps to an Ecology of Mind, exobiology, things left behind. ------------------------------------ Ecologies Brian A. J. Salchert
Thursday, August 16, 2007
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= June: Year-day 170 Long ride on a slow train. There just ain't no way I'm gonna git myself to where I'm goin' on time. Just have to forget time, forget he's even around. Watch for snow come hordin' in at the windows. Let June go like a fadin' dream as the colors climb through the green leaves. Not fret about time, crime, jouncin' from Boston to lost--Chi-ca-gooo. Com'on train you arumblin' on the track. Com'on train you, need some oil in my back. Com'on train you on your hazy tired rails, we gotta git, gotta, out of your jails. Com'on train you, old turtle in attack, mean it when you hare, when your whistle wails. ------------------------------------ trains: model and real Brian A. J. Salchert
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= June: Year-day 169 This a a song praising maintenance men, who may holler, chew, spit, yet keep things clean; and this is a song for construction men, who build & rebuild and implant the scene with structures we want and architects plan, and this is a song for the architects; and this is a song for the works of Man, praying for beauties he often rejects. The shunned barn, collapsed with its hay, sinks, sinks into its own decay; the orange moon, three-quarters bright, nests at a maple's edge; and animals become the dreams each drinks and the thoughts each accepts, midnight and noon; and a man walks out, and hangs from a ledge. ------------------------------------ great buildings Brian A. J. Salchert
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= June: Year-day 168 Today I found a core of reference waiting on a shelf in Grolier's Book Shop. It is an ocean of charmed recompence that supports my being yet makes me stop to see again what I've been seeing: Life's of a piece that changes and changes, growing from no beginnings we can grasp, its strifes and harmonies filled with/ wonders of knowing. And squaws carry papooses so they see, and chicks carry babies so they're kept blind. The old die young; and the young, old. To find yourself, you must forget to look, just be; be yourself, you must look ahead, behind. This is America: A Prophecy. ------------------------------------ poetry anthologies Brian A. J. Salchert
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= June: Year-day 165 Early morning: Ohio: the pale clouds stick out their flaming tongue; the thermometer cracks, anticipating. My teach aunt, stout, indomitable, drives; the U-HAUL tracks behind. We washboard past the eiree lake, the Pennsylvania grape vines--the Olds Cutlass, silent, smooth--intending to make Swampscott by 8 PM if the planned holds. Strangers we pass, each my sister / my brother, special / gifted, bad / good, sober my glasses. In a rotting nation, not much relaxes. This moment, that, I wish I'm somewhere other; still, riding toward Emerson land, the grasses of upper New York waving, spins my waxes. ------------------------------------ usa travel Brian A. J. Salchert
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= June: Year-day 157 Bold Forbes, Elocutionist, Bold Forbes. Third horse in four years to win the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes. So good, lucky: yet neither good nor lucky enough, spurred though he was by a jockey of deep skill. Oh Secretariat, last of the great, how soon will one like you charge from the gate and fix us again with the triple thrill? Heywood Hale Broun, sports' announcer exquisite, always I am pleased by your dandy visit, your mixing of literature and sport and history, your warm distinguished air counterpointed by flashy clothes. Swift, spare, the thoroughbreds sweat to match your report. ------------------------------------ Triple Crowns of thoroughbred racing Brian A. J. Salchert
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= June: Year-day 156 Bridal wreath, red maple, sun: West Bend, bright for "Alice in Dairyland" and this year's "Alice" finalists. Young women's hopes, fears pageanted out in three packed days of flight into and from the no-man's land of truth. Candlelight heat, spirits releasing care, fragrance of virginity in the air: what fate portends in a mole, a wedged tooth? Janice Marie, name of the miss who'll win. Janice Marie, name of my wife--not entered. What will the first do with her year of fame? Some will say we are dying, fast in sin. Some will whisper: "By evil they are mentored." White, red, brilliant yellow: so winter came. ------------------------------------ Argument from beauty Brian A. J. Salchert
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
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= May: Year-day 152 In the heart of the artichoke, no blood; in the cone of the storm, no dreamy sight. If while I'm writing, my pen is in bud, and pushes leaves and blossoms out of night, thank desire and environment. Stand free. We will walk the spaces in molecules, examine an atomic galaxy in its spinning electron light. No mules. Remember when stopped at the end of May to look at the days the daffodils danced, to bow to the irises kingly old, think Arthur Miller now gone from our play and the parts he so outspokenly chanced. Be glad for each wisdom, shining and bold. ------------------------------------ Wisdom Brian A. J. Salchert
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= May: Year-day 146 Death comes in puzzling pieces; also life. Our enigmatic universe spins out. You move with a loved husband, a loved wife in fantasies where neither of you shout, or weep, throw things at each other, or beat flesh black-and-blue, and red. A willow touches the weedy yard, the scummy pond. The heat prostrates the house. People/ swing by on crutches. That is the top and bottom of it, hard as steel. There is no sense complaining or trying to tie this minute in knots so it can't get away. Whether green or charred, it will second by second show its door opened then closed, moved by/ the on-the-go. ------------------------------------ Life and Death Brian A. J. Salchert
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= May: Year-day 142 Let those of us who can, do: marry, love, increase each other, children blessed and blessing/ while those of us who can't, do otherwise yet rise supportive for the health of all; and all of us explore below/above/ & on the level, confident in stressing the primacy of life; and each surprise tomorrow today/ with care, catch each fall. You like me, if you do, for who you think I am; so also I like you. Yet who I truly am as who you truly are only God knows. So do & be: dream / link. Wizards of circuitry / fools of a zoo, we hide to live. Pray/ someday/ truth can star. ------------------------------------ Wholeness Brian A. J. Salchert
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= May: Year-day 129 So many poems exist, and will/ and will, leafing into sun, their small voices pressed against the wind, their bodies seeming still in the turning dance for which they are dressed variously--mounds, hills, mountains--as seasons touch and are touched by them. So many beings traveling out with their feelings and reasons momently caught for whomsoever's seeings. So, likewise, this embodiment of me, cracking open, uncurling, stretching: shape displacing sky, transformation of air, transformation of earth, of distant sea, the enchanting and enigmatic rape that fire is, dancing, still, taking/ to share. ------------------------------------ historical look at the major elements Brian A. J. Salchert
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= May: Year-day 127 In Japan, yesterday was children's day. In America, another'll be theirs. Childless at 35; likely to stay so, still, I feel I understand their cares: that though they jump and roll and scurry off and seemingly want to laugh and dance past any rule or need, turning just to scoff when they're called, come home, anyhow, at last. Of course, there are the unusual cases: those, for instance, who run away for good, withdrawing to more salubrious places; those who/ run for a time/ to learn what/ should be done/ so they and others like their faces; those who suffer, can't run, but wish they could. ------------------------------------ children Brian A. J. Salchert
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= April: Year-day 114 O yes, "It is we who wither away, not the state", Randall; & yet we who grow strong and jouncy also. I may not know enough to choose well the course of my day, but that won't stop me from trying. Let's say our say then, vocally or as we flow otherwise, despite the angers that blow from us, the frustrations, regrets; so pray as caringly as we can, thankful for each moment we adieu, allowed to fill and be filled by: surgeon, patient, nurse; teacher, student, decadent; fireman, victim, store detective, policeman, guard; driver; mill/ mine/foundry worker: each a/ mystic creature. ------------------------------------ A Theory of Human Personhood Brian A. J. Salchert
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
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= April: Year-day 99 When the universe ends, what beyonds? Hell? Purgatory? Heaven? Dimensions only dreamed of? Or not even a nothing lonely and afraid? Who can any way now tell, or could ever? Of what importance are these questions? Blinded by a middling sun, awed by auroras, winds--on this sheet, spun, here, I still write these words to reach: how far? Deep in a city's yellow night, shrunk, lost, rooting the elements with a coarse word hard to appreciate, hard to transume, I tweak the eternal; ignore the cost, a rose's fragrance on my fingers heard, and the flames surrounding an icy plume. ------------------------------------ Astronomy Picture of the Day Brian A. J. Salchert
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= March: Year-day 84 Again it comes, close, riding the prevailing westerlies, crow presence, hard to believe, huge as a house, dreamless, caught in a wailing that joins, yet/ mocks ours. What butterflies grieve but the dead leaves, this morning's wind so strong we can see it do as yesterday, drive an empty box near perfectly along the steep curve to our lot, passing alive? So Janet Gilles Araoka, away in Japan mothering two boys, returns from that confusion into ours, and we-- not at all expecting she'd come/ to stay, or come so soon, or, as she has--bring ferns, and bonsai yews, and roses, and a plea. ------------------------------------ Allspirit Poetry Brian A. J. Salchert
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= March: Year-day 82 (for Sandy Troedel) Kumquats and boysenberries and the edges of love. If who I am is less than who I might have been, less than you, clouds and hedges still scare and please us both. And as I grew, you grew too; and as I grow, you, as bright and frail as shafts of wheat, as today's breeze, each to her own fullness. So, though wrong, right, or neither, we can smile and hug with ease. That is why, mom, this afternoon, I smear our bland white bread with exotic preserves and chant incantations to frighten fear from the gray, the bush, to compose our nerves. Come, mom. Come sit. Come play, come talk, come near. Oh! how from bark and pane that robin swerves! ------------------------------------ Mothers.net Brian A. J. Salchert
Monday, August 13, 2007
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= March: Year-day 69 I have never had his experience, nor am likely to, this lineman who dares to bring us power, chancing his; who stares the shocks of death heart to heart for the sense of comfort we have come to demand, dense though most of us are to the hard repairs he must make after a storm, and the cares that move him both to drink and maintenance. Oh, each of us lives his own kind of life somewhere between circumstance and desire more or less dangerously, pain and joy as in the pregnant womb of a good wife or the eyes of a birthday gal his fire or his climbing of poles/ to keep the boy. ------------------------------------ Skinny Rowland Brian A. J. Salchert
sw00568usabys-selectedsonnets.yd65
= March: Year-day 65 Can't think, my lights going brown and brown, black, the toll of the ice storms mounting past thought while hands reach anxiously for candles brought from a storeroom somewhere, a dead bee's sac, fires for each hall providing us a track of vision, a santuary charm, caught as we are without electric, distraught yet giggly, so suddenly peeled years back. First I, then Mark, turned the register's crank: room charge, tax--the x read of zeeing out, then the z read, and the x read again, zero after zero, proving the bank, the mechanical day, was full about, balanced to nothings by the hands of men. ------------------------------------ I was a night auditor for over 25 years, mostly at busy Holiday Inn establishments. Customer service abilities and a facility with numbers, which included knowing how to find and fix errors, were essential. A night auditor is also a night manager. - Brian A. J. Salchert
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= March: Year-day 64 Little White Lady, the Alloy's cat, found this morning beneath their bed with three kittens, so carried Cindy to her happy wits' ends she phoned the inn to tell me that, and drown in details my tiredness before the rains and the sorrowing ice return, our hearts withering as power lines snap, writhe, spark, basements fill, graces crack, death comes again. Crouched here in a county of isolation; saved from cold by the nature of my work, linemen in transparent desolation leave barely a word to this poet clerk waiting days for a day's inspiration to mix meows with a wet weather's quirk. ------------------------------------ West Bend, WI library Brian A. J. Salchert
sw00566usabys-selectedsonnets.yd60
= February: Year-day 60 So this is Sadie Hawkins Day. What fun! Yet, what disturbance! How shall--? We call this leap year: the year, one would suppose, we'd miss-- by leaping, I mean--a day, not put one in. On the other hand, the ladies leap on gentlemen this day--are allowed to, that is--though I doubt there are many who now, if ever, such a tradition, keep. At any rate, we go about enjoying it/ as we can, making a feast of little, or so it seems, although we're not quite able to much explain--perhaps we are employing a mystery, a special kind of riddle, or symbol of--our clasped hands/ on a table. ------------------------------------ Al Capp's Sadie Hawkins Brian A. J. Salchert
sw00565usabys-selectedsonnets.yd47
= February: Year-day 47 Whippets. Dogs of war. Flashes of delight. Tricks of the mind. Deceptions of the heart. The charged astrophysicist's starry art. The quickness of the swimmer, lean and bright. Arrows of exertion. Missiles. A night for the making of deserts. The wrong part. Bean soup floating a world of termites. Start today tomorrow. Be kind to your sight. If apple blossoms give peach blossoms fits, perhaps the cherries will tear out their pits and the oranges burst into umbrellas and somewhere in a pineapple preserve a banana with a kingdom of nerve will detonate, you lucky gals and fellas. ------------------------------------ 2004 war article by Peter Bergen Brian A. J. Salchert
sw00564usabys-selectedsonnets.yd42
= February: Year-day 42 Flick. Today is the day we celebrate the birth of the man whose thirst witnessed light electrified in a glass bulb, whose great intrepid perseverance lit the night for good, more perfectly than candles, whose relentless genius heard a sound machine lift voices from spinning, needled discs, whose insight flashed to images/ on a screen. That such amazing beauties should have grown where we must recognize them as our own are blessings to hold even as they run, even as they fly past where they have flown, even as they enter the charged unkown to use so as to bless/ Tom/ Edison. ------------------------------------ Thomas Edison Brian A. J. Salchert
sw00563usabys-selectedsonnets.yd56
= February: Year-day 56 No idea today; so here's a line and here's another, closing up, preparing for a third one running now as far and fine--. Line four already, when three was just airing? Why, we'll be out of the fifth before we've had time to taste it! And as for six, it's gone! What! What shakes here? What's up this guy's sleeve, anyway? Seven? He's giving me fits! Eight? Sorry, too late, I'm number nine. Oh, heavens to lime'n'rum! I suppose ten is eleven, and the twelfth rat will show somewhere inside the thirteenth ship again-- that bad luck phantom--so we barely know where fourteen floats, or how, or why, or when! ------------------------------------ number poems Brian A. J. Salchert
Sunday, August 12, 2007
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= February: Year-day 34 I love the sonnet, so blustery free, laughing in its chains, strong in its voice full of icicles, steam, crocodile eggs, me, voluptuous, concerned, impregnable, expecting visits from monsters, roots, gods, terrible in their urgencies, cold tides harrowing boats, docks, doctrinal frail clods, enterers of exits: we: race of prides. Such contrivances we envision, putting one over on ourselves every time, yet nimbly enough for our limited view, not needing true perfection, faultless footing, even if we don't let rats/insects get tomorrow. I hate the sonnet. Don't you? ------------------------------------ The above sonnet is at Sonnet Central, but its name there is slightly different. Writing a Sonnet Brian A. J. Salchert
sw00561ut-17.3poems
The Undulant Trees . . . . 8 the marketplace the mark-it place mark it up mark it down it's the most mark ed place in town § . . . . 9 When his golf ball didn't go in the hole, the golfer drilled a hole in his golf ball, and turned his tee upside down. So there. § . . . . 10 Don't be glum. Suck your thumb. Dont' be blue. Bite your shoe. Don't be mad. Write an ad. What the heck you hittin' me for? As long as it takes. I see. I know. I gotta go. - Brian A. J. Salchert
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= January: Year-day 23 There should be no end to the thanks I show for being born and allowed to remain long enough in my ragged flesh/ to grow in this world/ and beyond, a sunshine rain. Flowers climbing, rising/ from a mountainside; waters slowly entering Earth's thick sieve; rhythms of wind carrying melodies pied. There should be no end to the thanks I live. Could there seem no beginning, middle, end to my gratitude, my freedom to be, you would note a kind of balance in me you would smile toward/ as a friend to a friend who is glad the other is near to spend a spectral moment with, or two, or three. ------------------------------------ Gratitude Quotes Brian A. J. Salchert
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The Undulant Trees . . . . 4 Christabel went to Hell on a paper shell. § . . . . 5 Lovely ducks swaggle and dunk in the trench they dug. § . . . . 6 Hot potatoes / cold spinach make my skin itch. Oh tomatoes! § . . . . 7 Given the givens, I wonder if a broken record ever is broken. ------------------------------------ famous short poems Brian A. J. Salchert
sw00558ut-15.4poems
The Undulant Trees Haiku 2 a lily blossoms upon the Arakawa -- your hand opens mine § . . . . 1 God cries on my pillow, and I ignore Him. § . . . . 2 This is a word to the why's. It is in disguise. § . . . . 3 Did you remember? Remember what? Come on now. That's what I say. ------------------------------------ Haiku Links provided by Millikin University Brian A. J. Salchert
sw00557usabys-1976ond.1stlines.topics
October/November/December entry [ last modified: 2008-08-02 ] for links to 1976 Today see Dec. 30 in 2006 archive a * indicates one of the selected 49 which are in this August 2007 archive = [ 19 of 25 ] October: Year-day 275 * October, month of changes, touch, change me | due to low self-confidence - October: Year-day 276 While some hearts wither, have acutely dried, | about my writing - October: Year-day 278 Here's what I wrote when I turned twenty-four, | Dylan Thomas-like vignette - October: Year-day 279 Mistakes, regrets, pending dilemmas, death. | Gregory Bateson - October: Year-day 280 Now, while each delusion and illusion dries, | sadness in a necessary killing - October: Year-day 281 * Homer has/ stormed through all. And so they say: | surviving the precursor - October: Year-day 282 Let others use their minutes as they wish, | my way of making, sort of - October: Year-day 283 Yew-honored soul crags (over life roars, cold | more on my poetizing - October: Year-day 284 * O master of the keys, of treasures, lord, | Shakespeare - October: Year-day 285 * Brave spellstar, child of magic beauty, arc | Keats - October: Year-day 286 * "What does it matter, friend, how much we dream? | imagined Keats/Hunt - October: Year-day 287 What scope I have; what promise yet to prove, | poetic growth speculation - Ocotber: Year-day 288 I journey unexpected, Venus bound | asserting mastery over time - October: Year-day 289 * Mysteries of the mind: Entire designs, | view of myself as poem-maker - [ 20 of 25 ] October: Year-day 290 To touch you deeply and be loved for it | immanent future revelation/hope - October: Year-day 291 Oh me oh my, what's hiding in the sky? | autobiographical stuff - October: Year-day 292 * The Collected Poems of Brian the Split. | more autobio - October: Year-day 293 Starting/ with who I am, owl in the wind,| opinions and a thank you - October: Year-day 294 * So much has been written, and will be still | views about writing - October: Year-day 295 I've not written one perfect poem, not one; | and related thoughts - October: Year-day 296 "It can never be satisfied, the mind, | of being and doing - October: Year-day 297 How I'd like to live essentially me | desiring parallel lives - October: Year-day 298 * César Vallejo, you are so much! Aye. | honoring mastery - October" Year-day 299 "Both of us like poems to be well made and | Auden and me-on-me - October: Year-day 300 Finally got ahold of Connell's Notes _ _ _. | of is and to-be - October: Year-day 301 And the witches of celestial light | John Clare, Clifford Stone, me - October: Year-day 303 Quitting Capital Beltway's Holiday, | relieved, angry, ready to ride - October: Year-day 304 Here in the prison of my fears and wants, | arguing with G. B. Shaw - October: Year-day 305 I wanted to do better than I've done; | me, my wife, my life - - [ 21 of 25 ] November: Year-day 306 If you, like me, are a dreamer, beware; | differences and love - November: Year-day 307 It's before sunrise on Election Day | leaving the D. C. area dream - November: Year-day 308 * & what the hell's a good poem anyhow: | of what I make, & its experiencer - November: Year-day 309 Sunrise, discussing possibilities, | back at West Bend - November: Year-day 310 Happiness? an Eden I/ have not gotten | the strength to be - November: Year-day 311 Destiny: Judas; chance: Matthias. One, | ways of seeing - November: Year-day 312 Forgive me, Father, Rune, my being's Life, | a prayer & a request to love - November: Year-day 313 O, the inventions of Man, how they move! | a call to peace amid change - November: Year-day 314 Grandfather Salchert / Grandfather Morse--one | & Laura Riding, & injustice - November: Year-day 315 I cannot help it, and I do not want to: | of immanence and - November: Year-day 316 Because they do not understand my silences, | ponderings - November: Year-day 317 "Poetry had always been dying of | Simpson on Pound, and - November: Year-day 318 People just won't let people/ be themselves; | an errant statement - November: Year-day 319 "Good morning" I impress with my pen, and: | irony, maybe - November: Year-day 320 Robert Lowell, for us, ever to vie, I | a conversation with - [ 22 of 25 ] November: Year-day 321 " . . . you need not be a victim of your shame . . . | response to Stanley Kunitz - November: Year-day 322 Keep 'em tight, like the icy winds, your bones | point & counterpoint - November: Year-day 323 The leaves are screaming orange, yellow, red. | fusions, confusions - November: Year-day 324 For all the pains, being alive, Rune Lord, | what it means - November: Year-day 325 All things of the moment pass; so, this line-- | go in to go on - November: Year-dsy 326 After the leaves fall, a throwaway life, | pondering life - November: Year-day 327 * Slowly in his hand the tulip glass swirls | meaning? - November: Year-day 328 A whole year of walking?--if it takes five? | breath and desire - November: Year-day 329 Clogged air filter, too clogged to be blown clean, | about living - November: Year-day 330 " . . . you can say anything as long as it | Kunitz and me, once again - November: Year-day 331 Alive in a world I do not arc with, | dealing with contraries - November: Year-day 332 Words I've sung through, rejected, and rejected | the old masters - November: Year-day 333 Strange world, and I am one of the strange things | at the edge of depression - November: Year-day 334 A mouth full of agates. On the kept walk | the sailor who couldn't - November: Year-dday 335 Lo, my Rune God, ruined God, rued, roomed God, | faith doubts - - [ 23 of 25 ] December: Year-day 336 I am more intricate than a computer. | lonliness - December: Year-day 337 Who's to say the comfort of an old hat | what one can have - December: Year-day 338 What immaturity! what fright! my friend, | wanting what one can't have - December: Year-day 339 The Milwaukee Library Book Sale: packed. | situations - December: Year-day 340 For the musics, to be able to hear; | thanking the Trinity - December: Year-day 341 Who's to say who deserved damnation, heaven; | another directive ending - December: Year-day 342 The times are lean; I should be lean/ with them. | the uncertain future - December: Year-day 343 "Our God is delightfully messy God" | after what Fr. Charlie Robinson said - December: Year-day 344 When that time there is too quickly escapes | angering the Time gods - December: Year-day 345 So, today, Auden came, at last collected | perfection, rejection, love had - December: Year-day 346 Once behind in a lengthy project, filling | conceptions about - December: Year-day 348 "A poem is never finished; it is | poetry - December: Year-day 350 What one gains one day one loses the next | frustrations - December: Year-day 351 The Hully-Gully monster rides again | my crazy self - [ 24 of 25 ] December: Year-day 352 "Christmas is near"/ the decorations say, | change of heart - December: Year-day 354 " . . . the transparent children"/ Anais writes/ | Nin's indigo children - December: Year-day 355 Spin the head. This is America. Death | things being backwards - December: Year-day 357 If I give You, Lord, my sexual being, | questions of the quests I'm on - December: Year-day 358 Bad dreams of ice-crystal snows again/ burning | knowing doesn't cut it - December: Year-day 359 Christmas Eve, and the narrow snow/ wisps/ still | a frightful God - December: Year-day 360 Merry Christmas. It's over; it's begun!: | renewal - December: Year-day 361 * Faith: Believing that what is beyond one | and when I die - December: Year-day 362 Confusion: me, 'times: a sign on the road | self-centered world - December: Year-day 363 * Read, read out loud, for the sense and the sound: | counsel - December: Year-day 364 To see last is to see first, and the Fate | ethos, logos, pathos - December: Year-day 365 All the passed spaces I've yet to fill, know, | when Time wins, what? - December: Year-day 366 Year's end again. And if a world's, so. | challenges, yes; but face fear - The Fantastic Brian A. J. Salchert
sw00556usabys-1976jas.1stlines.topics
July/August/September entry [ last modified: 2008-08-02 ] for links to 1976 Today see Dec. 30 in 2006 archive a * indicates one of the selected 49 which are in this August 2007 archive = [ 13 of 25 ] July: Year-day 183 Today my doctor informed me the fluid | illness and the gods - July: Year-day 184 Poetic theories abound, as well as | me and Richard Kostelanetz - July: Year-day 185 Not so sure about the efficacy | gratitude for centered energies - July: Year-day 186 All the people out there cracking their fires, | Independence Day - July: Year-day 187 Population zero: that's where I'm at. | heterosexual love - July: Year-day 188 And the tall ships glide up the bay, the river-- | humanity - July: Year-day 189 Elizabeth the Second dines in state | Rose Garden visit - July: Year-day 190 "Punishment is a fruit that unsuspected | reflections on Emerson quote - July: Year-day 191 Ride on, troubadour, carrying to all | poem-making - July: Year-day 192 Most of those starvation enslaves don't die | others' sufferings and me - July: Year-say 193 It isn't easy to care about you, | about my fool self - July: Year-day 194 Those politically exiled, by right, | sensitive rage - July: Year-day 195 Dream state after dream state after dream state, | weird dreams - July: Year-day 196 And conventioneers tiptoe on the planks | political platforms - July: Year-day 197 How often I stopped just short of that field | uncertain change of heart - [ 14 of 25 ] July: Year-day 198 Spritely in the gust an US flag flaps | with hope for my nation - July: Year-day 199 Perfection is the human dream, the flame | Olympians - July: Year-day 200 If I can love you more than you can love me, | about me to a loved one - July: Year-day 201 The wind today is that exciting kind | imaginings and reality - July:Year-day 202* And unimaginably far away | evolution beyond the biological - July: Year-day 203 Some days when time is short I wish I could |making a sonnet - July: Year-day 204 I write: for myself, for others, for you. | why and to what end - July: Year-day 205 Since AM 4 I have been/ stupid tired, | a bit down but maybe not - July: Year-day 206 Extra hours at work/ because it is summer, | writing and athletes - July: Year-day 207 Long end-of-the-period night again, | night audit vignette - July: Year-day 208 After living on bananas for two | a look at the whirled - July: Year-day 209 Moses, Babshoff, Wilkins, Cofin, Naber, | a look at Olympians - July: Year-day 210 Persistence is the kingdom of the wise | my unknowable self - July: Year-day 211 Overstrained my constitution again, | and the results thereof - July: Year-day 212 * In China last night many were told: take | misfortunes - July: Year-day 213 Let me nominate today Poland's day | praise for the Poles - - [ 15 of 25 ] August: Year-day 214 The prosaic and poetic truth is: | world athlete freedom - August: Year-day 215 Censorship? Feed 'em hell, the brilliant little | ignorance and insularity - August: Year-day 216 What's remembered last is remembered worst | at this time - August: Year-day 217 Noises in the park, highthawks screeching peace, | giving - August: Year-day 218 Being Supreme, Rune, thank You for my life; | gratitude and - August: Year-day 219 Lord, let your great ones/ rise up from the poor, | beseechings - August: Year-day 220 The end has come; the end will come again. | reincarnation - August: Year-day 221 The weary traveler rests his bones. Oh yah? | nature's revenge - August: Year-day 222 Hurricane Belle is ringing up the coast, | resisting toward freedom - August: Year-day 223 "Still to this world its wondering beginner" | to Nemerov about naming - August: Year-day 224 Wladymir Cieszynski: deep poet, seed, | of an acquaintance - August: Year-day 225 "Hell is other people" said Jean-Paul Sartre; | hell, heaven, people - August: Year-day 226 Conflicts of the spirit. Life against life. | life and regrets - August: Year-day 227 * Many of these sonnets many may say | aspects of insanity - August: Year-day 228 America, you crawl, walk, run, leap, fly, | striving - [ 16 of 25 ] August: Year-day 229 * Mr. and Mrs. Goldfinch dine on a thistle, | delight - August: Year-day 230 I am the man who didn't know what's good | self-recrimination - August: Year-day 231 In the heart of my heart a red wind blooms, | regarding the subject - August: Year-day 232 Ford and Dole; Carter and Mondale; McCarthy: | candidates - August: Year-day 233 * Precursor, owl of seredipity, | position statement - August: Year-day 234 And the answer is: I don't care enough. | unfixable faults - August: Year-day 235 Choosing priorities: the fight between | overcoming "but" - August: Year-day 236 * Of course I want to kill and kill, and have, | attitude towards others - August: Year-day 237 To what world, if not this, do I belong | self-aggrandizement - August: Year-day 238 Aah, people hassles, hassles with oneself-- | vagrant reflections - August: Year-day 239 Asked what I know, I find I want to blurt | not I, but all of us - August: Year-day 240 As much as I moan, the luck of the draw | presence through words - August: Year-day 241 Discotheques of discontent/ & delight, | what is and could be - August: Year-day 242 "The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away, | what should be but isn't - August: Year-day 243 * It is now November twenty-fifth, Jamie, | time-warped observations - August: Year-day 244 Heading east? Yes. Jerusalem? Mecca? No. | a new venture - - [ 17 of 25 ] September: Year-day 245 Opening and leaving, lightening: trying | moving - September: Year-day 246 * Popcorn and swizzle sticks. Who can I trust? | a fool of no worth - September: Year-day 247 Time is, was, will be, gets away, yet holds | imperfection - September: Year-day 248 Meet byintermingling, centered in care, | equality - September: Year-day 249 The idea is to be a tone master, | poem-making - September: Year-day 250 * If what I write strengthens your spirit, peaches! | and truth deferred - September: Year-day 251 Sometimes a man doesn't know where to start, | what the physical impairs - September: Year-day 252 Civilizations: reaction formations | replacing nations with new arts - September: Year-day 253 It might be nice just to write this and give | since freely blessed, freely give - September: Year-day 254 West Bend to Oakland City, Wis to Ind, | making a visit - September: Year-day 255 So many of us are so unaware | the end of humanity as we know it - September: Year-day 256 The longer I live, the larger my view; | or: don't I wish - September: Year-day 257 Remembrances / fantasies: Mt. Tam-- | the I and others - September: Year-day 259 If war is insane--and it is, the only | could we but fix us - [ 18 of 25 ] September: Year-day 260 * Your shining rings of love move, befuddle me, | reason amid mysteries - September: Year-day 261 Naked Festival. Or a symphony | me and the human condition - September: Year-day 263 A great sadness lives in the marrow of | vice, virtue, and a plea - September: Year-day 264 Yesterday, in a five o'clock steady rain | the ineffable - September: Year-day 265 Commemorations of conniption fits: | reason undermined - September: Year-day 266 How many confessions are there in me | and yet a request - September: Year-day 267 * Attended a picnic once--it was sunny, | we humans and events - September: Year-day 268 Justice--cracker barrel encomiums; | about humans - September: Year-day 269 Trying to sing without songing, I pull | sonnet talk - September: Year-day 270 Hamanity and I are parting ways. | yup - September: Year-day 271 And Jesus bore the burdens of us all-- | and so - September: Year-day 272 Thecarmelled-apple dream of moving on, | addled essence - September: Year-day 273 When aman cares so/ he cries, beauty comes: | civilization and beyond - September: Year-day 274 Men, whole, tend toward good; their organizations,| opinions - Building Blocks of Sonnets Brian A. J. Salchert
Friday, August 10, 2007
sw00555usabys-1976amj.1stlines.topics
April/May/June entry [ last modified: 2008-08-02 ] for links to 1976 Today see Dec. 30 in 2006 archive a * indicates one of the selected 49 which are in this August 2007 archive = [ 7 of 25 ] April: Year-day 92 Tomorrow President Ford will arrive | presidential visit comments - April: Year-day 93 President Ford, I am not on your side | more comments - April: Year-day 94 The ways I love are dangerous, concealed | self-analysis - April: Year-day 95 Which hour was it I first learned/ who I am: | self-knowledge - April: Year-day 96 Closed in this bedroom, the sun hidden west, | observations - April: Year-day 97 Touch me not; sleepless, I am weak as fluff | friendship concern - April: Year-day 98 On the average, we American voters | commentary about - April: Year-day 99 * When the universe ends, what beyonds? Hell? | questions / response - April: Year-date 100 If I weren't forcing myself to make rhymes | about writing sonnets - April: Year-day 101 Each of us hews a life unknown to us | you / I / poems - April: Year-day 102 I hate time, having to bend to it, | in the ongoing - April: Year-day 103 Tomorrow, Jefferson, man of the farms, | thinking diversely - April: Year-day 104 Relax, it is past time, past time, past time. | a view of self - April: Year-day 105 Desires--hear them, drumming across your windows-- | the inside stuff - April: Year-day 106 For several days, warm sun without clouds; | me and weather - [ 8 of 25 ] April: Year-day 107 Aftermath: warm weather still, a Good Friday | reflections on - April: Year-day 108 Holy Saturday; I finally finished | of me and Ashbery - April: Year-day 109 Easter dawn, light strawberry sherbet striped, | church quandary - April: Year-day 110 In my left forearm an off-and-on ache | gifts for the lonely - April: Year-day 111 Emerson, man, your courage, verve astound! | strength from another - April: Year-day 112 To rhyme is to punch the eyes of an owl; | out of certain conventions - April: Year-day 113 Time crumbles like sand drying in a palm | building alone - April: Year-day 114 * O yes, "It is we who wither away, | paean to all - April: Year-day 115 And so, when Chris Peters came to me smiling | Gwendolyn Brooks - April: Year-day 116 If we kill each other, do the crows care? | hate and love - April: Year-day 117 April: turn; turn about: yet sweet; yet cruel: | April moods - April Year-day 118 What sorrows come upon me with the dawn, | lows and highs - April: Year-day 119 Conditioned reflex. A sonnet should rhyme; | form and humanness - April: Year-day 120 O--give the world away. We'll buy it back | we human fools - April: Year-day 121 Lord, when the death frame's near, beam that belief | beseeching - - [ 9 of 25 ] May: Year-day 122 The self-winding watch of the poem ticks on | & feelings and ideas - May: Year-day 123 Have you ever felt badly about | self-dissatisfaction - May: Year-day 124 Confusion pervades.The moral designs | balance in making - May: Year-day 125 Killing time's one of my proclivities | tiredness dreams desires and - May: Year-day 126 Passing through, a salesman of pots and pans, | fiinding that one - May: Year-day 127 * In Japan, yesterday was children's day. | about children - May: Year-day 128 Desolate, a dead leaf on a rough rock | death metaphors - May: Year-day 129 * So many poems exist, and will/ and will, | about all poems and mine - May: Year-day 130 Give me the space to forgive myself, Lord, | a prayer - May: Year-day 131 * The world is full of recipes I'd just | ecologies - May: Year-day 132 Stopped to see Tom Montag last night, and learned | historizing USA - May: Year-day 133 Expansive journals of Lewis and Clark, | historical journals - May: Year-day 134 It's about time we let those who so hate/ |human attitudes - May: Year-day 135 The words: "Rebellion to tyrants is | the high and mighty - May: Year-day 136 Common knowledge it is/ too often we/ | right inner seeing - [ 10 of 25 ] May: Year-day 137 Their burial mounds: Bones scattered with bones: | what is sacred - May: Year-day 138 Cashing in the chips. It's time to go, take | change of heart - May: Year-day 140 Oh forget it, man, your life is not here | self-flagellation - May: Year-day 141 Wake-up calls. Wake up! Wake up! Wake-up calls. | imperfection - May: Year-day 142 * Let those of us who can, do: marry, love, | thoughts on being human - May: Year-day 143 It's amazing how sometimes everything | a saving act - May: Year-day 144 Peace, amid frustrations: nine days behind. | creativity - May: Year-day 145 Your have your cross to shoulder; I have mine. | empathy - May: Year-day 146 * Death comes in puzzling pieces; also life. | life and time - May: Year-day 147 The level of my caring sinks and sinks | hopelessness - May: Year-day 148 Friend, do not talk to me of love and death; | request - May: Year-day 149 Status? You gullible--. Gems. Gold. Sit down. | status - May: Year-day 150 Overcast skies, and from those to earth, fog-- | the day at hand - May: Year-day 151 "Poetry is for the intelligent." | personal position - May: Year-day 152 * In the heart of the artichoke, no blood; | grateful seeing - - [ 11 of 25 ] June: Year-day 153 Esoteric gibberish, foolish talk. | about these sonnets - June: Year-day 154 Somewhere in the tapestries of the air | defining who I am - June: Year-day 155 Richard Kostelanetz, your visions splinter | message to this R. K. - June: Year-day 156 * Bridal wreath, red maple, sun: West Bend, bright | beauty - June: Year-day 157 * Bold Forbes, Elocutionist, Bold Forbes. Third | and H. H. Broun - June: Year-day 158 Pentecost. Anniversary fourteen | of mystical importance - June: Year-day 159 As many things as I reveal to you | what I hide - June: Year-day 160 Coincidence has charms that chill my spine | and wonder - June: Year-day 161 Cartermania.Everbody's gone | politics - June: Year-say 162 Outside the drapes the glary winds so shiver | imaginations - June: Year-day 163 A / New Jersey. Victoria and Swine | being alive - June: Year-day 164 Anniversary eleven for me | consternation - June: Year-day 165 * Early morning: Ohio: the pale clouds stick out | moving east - June: Year-day 166 The America of business is to | spoil the view - June: Year-day 167 Ralph, here I am, an ignorant man | at Emerson's tomb - [ 12 of 25 ] June: Year-day 168 * Today I found a core of reference | life and a book - June: Year-day 169 * This is a song praising maintenance men, | buildings and humans - June: Year-day 170 * Long ride on a slow train. There just ain't no | train ride - June: Year-day 171 The trip is over; the trip has just begun. | life's journey - June: Year-day 172 Death, my friend, is old news I'd like to say | reading the end - June: Year-day 173 And around me, like water, rushing sun; | taking it in and - June: Year-day 174 Step out. The wind will not/ slice off your nose, | gentleness - June: Year-day 175 Well, my friend, let's go gather conversations | passing words - June: Year-day 176 The Joplin and Springfield rainbows trance eyes-- | questioning fervor - June: Year-day 177 The body is a fragile work of wonder | reflections - June: Years-day 178 To live is to die; to die is to live. | giving / loving - June: Year-day 179 Sometimes it isn't worth a Teton Dam, | nature, and ours - June: Year-day 180 As the sun coasts toward the tunnel of green, | civilizations - June: Year-day 181 More tests; yet more tests. It's TB perhaps. | health problem - June: Year-day 182 So, I'm on umber St. John's third floor, | health problem - - Open Poetry sonnet sites Brian A. J. Salchert
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
sw00554usabys-1976jfm.1stlines.topics
January/February/March entry [ last modified: 2008-08-02 ] for links to 1976 Today see December 30 in 2006 archive a * indicates one of the selected 49 which are in this August 2007 archive the ** one is in the January 2008 archive at sw00766a = [ 1 of 25 ] January: Year-day 1 With eyes for the shining wind to begin, | project introduction - January: Year-day 2 I am a roamin' Cath'lic. Nowhere calls | love interrupted - January: Year-day 3 Having started stiffly, loosened, then flown, | celebration intent - January: Year-day 4 You who are bloated with comforts, are held | wealth warning - January: Year-day 5 Views of America: to be a guide | history interiorized - January: Year-day 6 Sleep (before continuance, before speech): | rest for the journey - January: Year-day 7 Wake. The neon night flicks rainbows. Wake. Wake. | arise and see - January: Year-day 8 We are slipping into summer. I may never | unsettlings - January: Year-day 9 All the sad remembrances, yours and mine. | past action hauntings - January: Year-day 10 They don't like me out there. I don't know why. | American self - January: Year-day 11 So here I am: in prison, on an isle, | my inner self - January: Year-day 12 "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation", | about but alone - January: Year-day 13 No, I never have quite/ learned how to swim, | inadequacies - January: Year-day 14 Happiness? Sort of an Eden within, | guarded optimism - January: Year-day 15 Somewhere I heard the voice of a man charge | King birthday sonnet - [ 2 of 25 ] January: Year-day 16 Today I begin my thirty-sixth year, | turning 35/ reflections - January: Year-day 17 Everybody likes me. Haa. Sure seems strange! | popularity foolin' - January: Year-day 18 Veils. Veils. What we see, we see but in part. | about being human - January: Year-day 19 Out of "the mouths of babes" come--tinker toys? | youth views and - January: Year-day 20 Sometimes living is spiny hard, all hooks| dissatisfaction - January: Year-day 21 It can take so long to create a poem | about poem-making - January: Year-day 22 This is a banner for the Red Rose Sect, | against abortion - January: Year-day 23 * There should be no end to the thanks I show | gratitude - January: Year-day 24 And the delicate powered-sugar snow, | as is - January: Year-day 25 Before, the past was presented as myth; | about history - January: Year-day 26 Yesterday, heavy snow, to bring us wonder, | synthesis - January: Year-day 27 Too much to think on, and with Shelley dead, | in the maelstrom - January: Year-day 28 Don't question the insanitites of writers | troubled writers - January: Year-day 29 If you still think you can flippantly spawn | me and what is - January: Year-day 30 Spirit is a music no one can hear | insight - January: Year-day 31 The year of the dragon supplants the hare's, | Chinese New Year - - [ 3 of 25 ] February: Year-day 32 When a soft rain in a rolling wind's whim | attractions fled - February: Year-day 34 * I love the sonnet, so blustery free, | of the sonnet and - February: Year-day 35 "Nobody's gonna save us from us but us." | salvation - February: Year-day 36 Honesty in the sequin snow, the cold, | reflections - February: Year-day 37 Melancholy, what a black horse you are, | melancholy - February: Year-day 39 Listening to Ron's invisible guitar | reasons for wonder - February: Year-day 40 Whim is the master of youth; order, age. | doublenesses - February: Year-day 41 Save the universe. Replace Man. The things | about humankind - February: Year-day 42 * Flick. Today is the day we celebrate | to Tom Edison - February: Year-day 43 Tall and ascetic, with a screechy voice, | of President Lincoln - February: Year-day 44 A time for quiet and simplicity. | soft touches - February: Year-day 45 Happy Valentine's, if you wish. The sky |Valentine - February: Year-day 46 Across Wayne Road, steelwheels: kids on their skates. | acts - [ 4 of 25 ] February: Year-day 47 * Whippets. Dogs of war. Flashes of delight. | anti-war surreal - February: Year-day 48 Back to the usual, then. Not because | need for calm - February: Year-day 49 Question: Will I actually make it through | doubt - February: Year-day 50 D. H. Lawrence knew it: (there is no "I"); | brain views - February: Year-day 51 Numbers all night, words all day, my brains work | my brains and - February: Year-day 52 How many images have been lost, friend, | on poem-making - February: Year-day 54 We die a lot before we have to die, | experiences - February: Year-day 55 Walking with Janice to our car, Powers | migrations - February: Year-day 56 * No idea today; so here's a line | line-number game - February: Year-day 57 Those who die in battle I long will honour. | compassion for fools - February: Year-day 58 War? I have spoken on it. But once more. | anger and separation - February: Year-day 59 After all is said, nothing's left to say, | word power and - February: Year-day 60 * So this is Sadie Hawkins Day. What fun! | leap year day - - [ 5 of 25 ] March: Year-day 61 Lionizing the lamb, making a lamb | strength against bad weather - March: Year-day 62 Say the worlds we face are as black and hard | more strength - March: Year-day 63 West Bend, the prison arrived at through years | fool & ice storm - March: Year-day 64 * Little White Lady, the Alloy's cat, found | freezing rain, kittens and - March: Year-day 65 * Can't think, my lights going brown and brown, black, | ice storms - March: Year-day 66 Determination wins the day for sure | light and dark - March: Year-day 67 So, now, electricians/ swarm through the house, | they and I - March: Year-day 68 Coming as rain, the beasts, layer on layer | the ice beasts - March: Year-day 69 * I have never had his experience, |praise fora lineman - March: Year-day 70 Hi, Thatcher Lane Gearhart, born yesterday! | birth greeting - March: Year-day 71 Happy birthday, sister andbrother. I'm | messages - March: Year-day 72 Still, sister and brother, each in your frames, | more messages - March: Year-day 73 Today the power men woke up to leave | yet more messages - March: Year-day 74 ** Starships to Andromeda. Warps of time. | sci-fi dream - March: Year-day 75 Now the storm is over, the linemen gone, | hope and persistence - March: Year-day 76 Knowledge is the hemlock of innocence, | Socrates and - [ 6 of 25 ] March: Year-day 78 What once was clear is clear no more, yet shall | oppositions - March: Year-day 79 St. Joseph the Worker's Day, and the swallows, | seen and unseen - March: Year-day 80 Guilty? Oh yes, we all are: in this; in that: | human failing - March: Year-day 81 Gods o of laughter, of sorrow, your voices | toward honor - March: Year-day 82 * Kumquats and boysenberries and the edges | as one for whom - March: Year-day 83 We are strange: mammals of sleek consciousness | spirits awry - March: Year-day 84 * Again it comes, close, riding the prevailing | for one who passed - March: Year-day 85 The problem with death is it stops the voice, | artist immortality - March: Year-day 86 Thank you, Harold Bloom; A Map of Misreading | stimulus - March: Year-day 87 Sleep: the body's balm, or so one's led to think: | the value of rest - March: Year-day 88 Up from the left, ahead, a pickup pulling | the joy of being - March: Year-day 89 Such darknesses, such searing lights, Lord, jam | Divine aid - March: Year-day 90 The stubby tough potentate shouts and drums, | of Chicago's mayor - March: Year-day 91 Cry out, my spirit says, cry out to God, | in isolation - - The Literature Network Brian A. J. Salchert
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
sw00553a-3events
Autobio meeting lines Pessoa Yesterday, while sitting where I now am, I heard above me footsteps and voices, and left this where to go there: out on the walkway to wait. I figured someone was being shown the apartment above mine, but I was not sure. Whatever the case, I hoped to catch a management person because I wanted to find out if the guy who had been above me left. I, however, was a bit shocked when the group came down. I did ask my question. [ Note: after doing some resaerch this morning, this personal human skin pigment system evolved: 1msp - 10msp, wherein the lower the number the lighter the pigment. ] Three people were with the woman who'd shown the apartment: one was a quite tall, quite elderly, quite vertical 1msp male; another was a more darkly-pigmented female I chose not to look at; the third was a seemingly young 7msp(?) male who appeared strangely familiar, a fact which disturbed me, but for reasons I have not identified. At that point I said something I probably should not have said, though what I said was meant to show my congeniality. § Later, while back here, five lines of a sudden entered from a slightly accented voice. My subconscious was at it again. I appended a title to those lines after I wrote them down in the notebook I am daily using. Here's that call-it-what-you-will: - Epitaph? This guy made a frenetic passage. It was worthless. We threw him in the garbage. He loved it! He stayed there forever. § Late last night and again this morning, having seen his name in so many places online, I felt it was time for me to learn more about Fernando Pessoa. As I nearly habitually now do, I went to the Wikipedia page about him first. It was a good choice, generally and in particular, especially the Fifth Empire particular. I found curious similarities between me and Pessoa, but I'm not revealing them. From this morning's searches, I encountered a poem he wrote in English: "I am the escaped one" It is on this page: there are three other poems on this page, but this to me is the best a brief but special Fernando Pessoa site Brian A. J. Salchert
Sunday, August 5, 2007
sw00552a-an.email.2anyone
Autobio An Email to Anyone [ This was to be an email to a certain person, but since a technical impasse confronts me I'm making changes to it (while presenting the core of it) here. For some days I have been trying to understand a poetics which does not mesh with my personality but is nonetheless of interest to me. Therefore, the info re the poems of mine in this entry. I am curious as to how they, in regards to that poetics, position themselves. BAJS ] Anyone, Read this once or twice and pay special attention to the author's remarks on silence and freedom, power structure, and the vanguard. Also this sentence: "It is a refusal to admit that one participates in a language that requires active engagement." Examples from the works of 3 poets are provided as an aid to understanding, but I confess I am not yet capable of connecting the examples given to the poetics proposed because I am not yet capable of appreciating those examples. In other words, they are on a wavelength which is out of my present range. So it could be my poems may seem silly by comparison or, at worst, even just as they are. Actually, I think some of mine are examples of a third or fourth or fifth poetics, not that poetics one (or any other) has to be discrete. The first link is to a poem quite unlike what will follow it. My roots are in quietism. Silence has long been central to my aesthetic, an aesthetic I recently called "My Noumenon Aesthetic" in which I used a metaphor which feminizes the subconscious. See my new Rhodingeedaddee blog. This poem's "I" can be seen from angles unrelated to each other: 1) author of poem 2) some other human 3) some animal, such as a bird. The poem is tightly structured. It did not arrive whole, but from what did arrive I knew I had to work out whatever more of it was to be in the same manner. It did not have a title, and it took some time for me to settle on one. It is not an easily understood poem--I don't fully understand it--although there will be readers who think it is too simple and/or too haughty. See 2007/04/10/sw00306a for "To Those I Am One With" Three from Rooted Sky 2007 See 2007/01/23/sw00102rs for "Dark Gazelle" See 2007/01/23/sw00103rs for ". . . Breakdown . . ." See 2007/01/24/sw00114rs for "What Color . . . Death?" One from 1976: in 2006 See 2006/11/22/sw00035usabys for "February: Year-day 47" One from Postures 2007 See 2007/02/12/sw00203p for "Four for John Ashbery" One from Venturings See 2007/04/25/sw00348v for "U" One on concluding page of Justan Tamarind epic See 2007/05/10/sw00385jt for "Incantation" (below epic) Five from June 2007 See 2007/06/30/sw00526june for "Monday" See 2007/06/06/sw00455june for "Therefore," See 2007/06/07/sw00459june for "Down Up" See 2007/06/18/sw00494june for "Rant" See 2007/06/10/sw00467june for "Raison d"etre" The alphabet poems in June 2007 are 2-column 9-row lists. --------- The Poem Is You Brian A. J. Salchert
Friday, August 3, 2007
sw00551a-imp.time.thoughts
Autobio Timely Thoughts [ The center of this entry is a somewhat changed email I wrote and sent out late last night. The time is right; but since few read this journal/ why I am bothering is a valid consideration. ] _________, 1. I also wish that person had a blog. 2. Something, sadly, seems to be poisoning cyberspacers. 3. Perhaps each person who posts a comment or comments on a given topic could be persuaded to keep that comment or set of comments to an agreed-upon total of n characters. 4. I also learn from topics and comments. I cull from them. I research via mother Google from what I cull. 5. Whatever our tastes, sharing with each other far outweighs tearing at each other. 6. I presently have two blogs. Big deal. One has had several visitors. I've been making hard copies of my entries. What I do is important to me. So be it if it is never important to anyone else. So be it if this tinseled planet suddenly dies. 7. In order to better understand me, these: I am almost autistic. I probably have Asperger's Syndrome. I do have generalized and frontal lobe epilepsy which is presently being kept under control by a certain medication. I am desperately trying to catch up on matters of literary and other fields-of-knowledge import. 8. Today I subscribed to Ray Kurzweil's free e-newsletter. Thank you, Brian KurzweilAI ------------------------------------ Brian A. J. Salchert