sw00625st5-basil.bunting

PM 12:02 - Completed my lastest post at Rho-- at AM 10:50 this morning.
Found it to be someways hilarious.  However, it does show my willingness
to take risks, and my creative nature.

-

Today is another fairly clear, high-cloud day.

-

Have added 3 sites to my Other Journals section in the Sidebar.

-  

-------------------------
Tony Baker "on Basil Bunting"


Brian A. J. Salchert                   

sw00624st4-situations

Before AM 8 the furnace heat.  On the high wire 1 silent blue jay.
Strands of medium to flimsy clouds far above.

-

Had problems this morning with this system while ZA was scanning.
It is AM 10:11.  Had to fix T tags spaces in the last 2 posts.
Will be changing when ZA scan runs.

-

Spent most of this day posting over at Rhodingeedaddee.  Had to 
leave it in draft form as I need to list the sources yet.  It is PM 10:10.



-
Brian A. J. Salchert                   

sw00623st3-poetics

Another clear morning.  At 8:07 the thermostat temp had descended
to nearly 70.  At 8:26 the furnace came on.  It is now 9:10 and is still
warmer in here than it needs to be.

-

In 1959 I entered Marquette University, and became a Schroeder Hall
resident.  One day I took a walk toward downtown along the north side
of Wisconsin Avenue.  When I came to a bookstore I went in to browse.
A large reddish-brown hardbound stopped me.  Near its jacket's top in
bold black print was D A N T E.  Beneath this name was an upright oval
containing a sideview of the poet's head.  I glanced through the book,
attending especially to the photos of engravings accompanying the text.
I read some passages.  On the jacket's front flap the original price had
been crossed through and a sale price listed.  I bought the book.  It is
presently sitting to the left of me on my dictionary.  I brought it into my
bedroom about a week ago, but I did not start reading it until late last
night.  So far I've read the first five cantos.  The chosen 69 engravings 
are by Gustave Doré and the blank verse translation by Lawrence
Grant White.  The book was published and copyrighted by Pantheon 
Books Inc., New York in 1948.  How much of this book I read during
my year at Marquette/ I can't say.  I thought I'd used it for the paper
I wrote--which I also still have--for an Enlgish course I took in 1960,
but when I went through that paper today I saw I had used Laurence
Binyon's 1947 translation: The Portable Dante.  I may have gotten
that book from the university's library.  I'm not absolutely sure what the
proper title of the book I have is, but my best guess is: Dante Alighieri 
The Divine Comedy  The Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso.

-

My paper: "The Fourfold Chariot": has a 9-line Prologue stanza I wrote.
This stanza has a rhyme scheme: aababcbcc: the same rhyme scheme I
used when five years later in the upstairs apartment in the Brumwell's
house in Solon, Iowa, I began writing Onefor (Justan Tamarind).  It
staggered me as I read it and began to think it might be, a fact I proved
moments ago via a "Justan Tamarind" search from Googleland.  It still 
does not prove I invented it, but I did first use it in 1960.  Here it is:

I rode the fourfold chariot through lands
Of liquid fire and ice where hope on sands
Did die, where endless sorrows strolled;
Where blackness killed the dancing golden strands
Of beatific light.  While thunder rolled
In bowls of coldest dew; the lively steeds
Increased their speed past Purga's prayerful fold,
My spirit skipped across the rolling meads
And stood in awe where paradise proceeds.

I'm shameless.  I know.  And that I was only nineteen then is no excuse,
which is not to say I've improved since.  I may have devolved.  My paper
is dated May 2, 1960.  That same semester a poem of four lines and two
sonnets I had written were accepted by the Marquette Journal, but a far
superior poem to any of mine, a longer and less encumbered poem, was
also accepted.  I have not yet been able to track down that poem's author,
but I have kept the Journals mine were in, and so have kept his.  Sharing it
would be a pleasure, dark as it in someways is, but I have no right to.  Its
title is: "Pride's Offering to the Gods": you will just have to imagine the rest.
Conjunctions of that nature always make me think, make me wonder, make
me want to say: I"ll bet there are more great poems written by unknowns
than there are by knowns.

-

Speaking of mysterious conjunctions, I am in the midst of one right now
as the result of a "beyond language poetry" search.  It is an essay by a
poet new to me: Richard Jackson, an essay published in the Cortland
Review.  He focuses on the sounds of words, and how poets can get
carried away by sounds, and how sounds carry meanings beyond those
meanings words normally have; so that while a poet needs to maintain a
kind of control, the words with which a poem is made depend on those
sounds inherent in them for the sake of that poem's vitality.  One example
Jackson points to is/ canto 5 of Dante's Inferno.  How is it this kind of !
occurs?  In my life they do so over and over and over and over and over.
Free will?  Yes, but--.  I am providing a link below and then returning to
read the second part.  It is PM 10:55, and amidst needs, I have finished
attending Jackson's essay.  The first poem he explores in index2.html is
"The Writer" by Richard Wilbur, a poem I recently read.  In reflecting on
his concluding remarks, I at this moment realize how all poets (no matter
their differences) are united: as users of language in ways which expose
the cultural prisons attempting to enclose and silence us / as users of
words in ways which seek to express the inexpressible / as explorers 
and preservers of freedom/ however we are able to do so.  If the forces
of deception prevail, all will die; for all such forces are bearers of death.
Upon the reigns of imagination and empathy inside each human/ so much
depends.


-------------------------
Richard Jackson on Language-Driven Poetry


Brian A. J. Salchert                   

sw00622st2-writing.upenn.edu

Just before noon today I finished reading Albert Gelpi's essay
"The Genealogy of Postmodernism: Contemporary American Poetry"
which is at writing.upenn.edu but was originally published in
The Southern Review  Summer 1990  pp. 517-541.  For one
seeking a brief, incisive overview of Romanticism, Modernism, 
Postmodernism, and Neoromanticism, this is an essay to read.
Near this essay's conclusion, the author of it takes a stance.  Your
opinion of that stance lies outside the value of the essay.  I have
been convinced by it, however, to learn more about Fanny Howe.

-

Today the sky is clear, the air a bit breezier and/ cooler.  My heater
is set at 70, and has heated this place to 75 several times, the last
at around 3pm.

-

Yesterday evening I went to Ted Berrigan's EPC page.  I've been 
there before, but--anyway, when I read section 3 of his "Sunday
Morning" I fell into a laughing jag so hard I had to stand up.  That
wigged-out guy comes straight at his reader.  Part of what made
his depiction there so humorous to me had to with the connection
I made between it and an old Catholic incense ceremony I often
witnessed during my elementary school years.  For some reason 
I was never quite able to identify, I didn't like the smell of incense.

-

Douglas Messerli also has a page at EPC, and late this afternoon
I read two of his essays there, the second of which Albert Gelpi
mentioned.  The first one reveals how Messerli's life was saved
by the ROTC.  It reminded me of my boy scout camping days
and the night I happened to be near the main cabin while a not so
pleasant act was being forced upon resident there/ and I asked to
be let in, but was told they could not allow that.  
Messerli's 1987 thoughts on "Language" poetries is the other. 

-

"The Poetics of Stillness" an interview with Fanny Howe by Patricia Vigderman



Brian A. J. Salchert                   

sw00621st1-other.poets

Sprintedon Tracker (st)       

              This is replacing As It Happens.  Wodan speaks, but not here yet.
He is riding in from the west/southwest.  The day is overcast.  The full moon
hides.  The dgd means dumpster ghost day.  Recent events have been a bit
odd.  Due to an Archambeau post about copyright and intellectual property
and poetic sensibility, and to a lengthy Jacket interview: Jerome Rothenberg
responding to questions from Nina Zivancevic, it was about midnight before
I raised myself into bed, and shortly thereafter the resident in the apartment
above came home.  I awoke a little after 2 AM, and as I was hungry, I ate
a cup of blueberry yogurt.  I awoke again at what I thought was 4:41 but
when I got back to bed my cellphone clock said 6:58.  I was certain (?) I
had not had a seizure.  The medication I have been taking for nearly three
years has kept me seizure-free.  I doubt I was abducted since even aliens
chortle when they hear my name.  I guess I just read the time wrong.  At 
AM 9:20, Wodan spoke once; and since I had other things to do, I shut this
virtual-access system down.  It is now AM 10:31.  The wan sunlight is no
longer wan, but the layer of clouds persists.  There is a football-like green
patch over Joplin headed this way.

[ Note: Robert Archambeau's post is dated: tuesday, september 25, 2007
          and its title is: Intellectual Property and the Invention of the Poet ]

-

Three nights ago, not wanting to read from any of the books at hand, I went
to my meager library and pulled out Sylvia Plath's Ariel.  I had last read it
years ago.  "Lady Lazarus" and "Daddy" remain my favorites.  I found myself
afterwards internally imitating her often curt sentences and insistent rhythms 
and hard-biting rhymes.

-

The English language is messed up.  Therefore, I've recently been tooling with
the problems inherent in the she-he-they sector.  I have fixed those problems
(annoyances), but my fix is not likely to appeal to many, if to any.  A she-he 
fix I support has existed for a number of years.  I do not know who first used 
it.  It is: s/he.  Two reasons I like this are rooted in biology.  Another
reason is its compactness. 

-

If I counted correctly, there are 18 poems in my Autobio group.
I'm not sure what to do about them, but I'm against adding more.
What's there could be considered a small e-chap.  So a
links page to them may be the best solution. 



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

Death of a Student, Chapter 2         by Wick Sloane
I first became aware of above when I visited Silliman's Blog today.
I do not want to say what Sloane wrote, but everyone should read it.


-
Brian A. J. Salchert                   

sw00620ut-20.poem

The Undulant Trees



 Capitalism's Sweet Prize


Once we'd eaten the whole world,
once we'd souled fat and ugly,
the world rankled in our gullets
so hard
we threw it back up
so hard
we died from it,
face down
in our garbage.




------------------------------
esthetics


Brian A. J. Salchert                   

sw00619v-16.poem14

Venturings                                 respect deformed



My Country, Whither Thee?


You said she 
laughed
at him.

You said she
did
not care.

You said she
yearned
to kill.

-

You said he
laughed
at her.

You said he
did
not care.

You said he
yearned
to kill.

-

You said they
laughed
at them.

You said they
did
not care.

You said they
yearned
to kill.


You said they
killed
for wealth.

You said they
killed
for fame.

You said they
killed
for power.

You said they 
killed
just to kill.

-

How dare you
say
she loved.

How dare you
say
he loved.

How dare you
say
they loved.




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

"Wind from all Compass Points"


Brian A. J. Salchert                    

sw00618ut-19.poem

The Undulant Trees



In Form at Ion


Talk, talk,           talk talk talk.
That's all you ever do is           talk talk talk.

Divert, divert, divert, divert.
All you ever do is           Gert Gert Gert.
I offer you/ a glass of wine.
You toss at me           a stein of Stein.
Yippity yuppity ruppity rup.
If it rattles it must be           a cup in a cup.
Maybe you'd maybe.  Maybe you wouldnt.
Maybe you'd only           if you could could could.
A sign is a sign is a sign is a sign.
A ticket's a ticket a ticket a ticket.
If I had a rosary, I'd beat you with beads,
whatever the piece   a gameboard needs.
Now don't get me wrong, and don't get me right.
Halve a good day.       Halve a good night.

                                         [  A  M2  579  2007  ]




-----------------------------------
Laurence Sterne


Brian A. J. Salchert                   

sw00617a-bio.me2

Autobio       All About Me #2


   In front of me is a third-person self-bio I am reluctant to use.
In its stead/ I suggest you do "Brian Salchert" searches.  I am
not famous, which is good.  Actually, I have a sense that I am
considered despicable by certain humans.  There is no doubt
I was both nourished and malnourished by Roman Catholicism
during my youth.  There is no doubt that at sundry times I have
lacked integrity and/or have been hurtfully proud.  Nonetheless,
I am rooted in forgiveness and gratitude.  Religions, to me, are
only as good as their most humane tenets.  Though I sometimes
see the necessity of it, I more and more detest war.  If you--if
only from time-to-time--read what I place in my Saulkurt's log,
you will see manifested more than enough of who I am.  Know
though/ I am highly eclectic & ever creative; that my physical 
Earth-alive state, while capable of being daringly energetic, is
minimally sound.  I'm a minor polymath headed toward becoming
a major polymath, not that I will venture forth.  I'm a wee hermit
whose bedroom is his cave.  Later, maybe, Brian A J Salchert. 




June 2007 photo
-----------------------------------
Geoffrey Chaucer


Brian A. J. Salchert                   

sw00616p-poem23s1

Postures 2007:  #23 Side One



Aunt Martha


Your eldest and most brilliant son
born with one of his legs
comically crooked behind his head
squeezing from his forming brain
the holy gift of abstract thought
did not silence your solo hymning
in the High Mass choir at St. Mary's
or desiccate your quiet will.

So, terminal some years after your
husband's death and the beginnings of your
second son's computer and familial success,
drugged by cancer from the daily tusslings
with those movie-bent notions of your eldest,
your smiling when my brother told you
it would be Christmas in two days
and your dying in the 2nd hour of Christmas Day

seemed right.  I venture angels choired near
as your spirit sang through midnight Mass.




- - - - -
09-18-07:  About a week ago I came upon this poem
in one of many manila folders containing writings of mine.
As I had forgotten about it, its existence surprised me;
and (for whatever reason) I didn't date it.  My guess is
I wrote in 1989.    
- - - - -


-
Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00615a-eml.5poems

Autobio


 How does someone choose 5 poems to send somewhere,
especially this someone, who has written so variously, if not
voluminously?  I would prefer to share the variety, but fear
doing such would be too risky.  Picking out 5 reflective or
5 imagistic or 5 directed-away-from-me or 5 humorous or
5 cause-engaged ones would be okay, maybe.  And what
about length?  And why am I even thinking about sending
anything anywhere?  I know which poem of mine has been
to date the most liked, not that that's worth an owl's hoot.
Besides, "a rose is a rose is a rose" and I am not the teeter
nor the totter nor the fulcrum.  What the withering columbine!
Here are 5 e-whips, but first this note:
   Rooted Sky was originally published in 1972.
   1976 was originally published in 1980.
   Postures was originally published in 1980.
   Prayers in December was originally written in 1974 and 1975.

See 2007/01/08/sw00093rs for 
     "Snow" from Rooted Sky 2007

See 2007/08/13/sw00565usabys for 
     "February: Year-day 47" from 1976: in 2006

See 2007/02/07/sw00150p for 
     "Modernity Having a Poet by the Collar" from Postures 2007

See 2007/02/19/sw00219s for 
     "In a Favored Place" from Tillie: set 1 of Sets

See 2007/06/18/sw00494june for "Rant" from June 2007

§

 Because I chose the above 5 does not mean I have chosen
the 5 I think are my best.  Only readers of what I've written
will be the final arbiters.  It may be that nothing of what I 
have written is worthy of attention and praise.  So here are 
whips to 5 others:

See 2007/01/07/sw00067rs for 
     "Starting Over" from Rooted Sky 2007

See 2007/08/30/sw00593usabys for 
     "September: Year-day 246" from 1976: in 2006

See 2007/02/04/sw00164p for "Tonight" from Postures 2007

See 2007/02/25/sw00236s for 
     "1-14-77     teal" from Birthday Ribbons: set 2 of Sets

See 2007/06/10/sw00647june for "Raison d'etre" from June 2007

§

5 more:

See 2007/01/08/sw00077rs for 
     "The Mind Has Seasons Out of Time" from Rooted Sky 2007

See 2007/08/18/sw00585usabys for 
     "May: Year-day 131" from 1976: in 2006

See 2007/05/16/sw00409pind for
     "December 16: for Emily Dickinson" from Prayers in December

See 2007/04/10/sw00306a for 
     "To Those I Am One With" from Autobio

See 2007/06/06/sw00455june for 
     "Therefore," from June 2007



-----------------------------------
at Jared Carter's site/ go to site map  archives  interviews  
         (read at least interview by George Fish)

~
Brian A. J. Salchert                   
                      =

sw00614piks-ghost

                                                                         tissue ghost 0004
                                                                         photograph of a
                                                                         found object
                                                                         click to enlarge

=====================================================
The original of this happened on the restroom floor off the den
(small bedroom) of a mo-ho I used to own and was residing in.
I had been doing some cleanup work.  It was not enjoyable.
I crumpled up the last of the tissue I was using, and threw it
on the floor.  I was so startled by the result, I decided to keep
it.  That was when I was in Gainesville, Florida.  I took some
pictures of it, none of which turned out as well as I had hoped.
As can be seen, I found a way to slip a thin sheet of cardboard
under it.  I put it in a safe place.  I brought it with me in 2006
when I moved to southwest Missouri.  I plan to photograph it
again.  I have cared for it as though it were an angelic horribly
disfigured child, its head wrapped in gauze bandages.  One of 
my impressions of it is/ that it represents aspects of my spirit.
=====================================================



                                                           
     Brian A. J. Salchert 

sw00613ut-18.7poems

The Undulant Trees



. . . . 11


lubrication
intonation:
'tis the nation's
aberration


    §


. . . . 12


You've lost
your mind.

What mind?
-
You think
I've lost
my mind.
-
Oh boy.


    §


Implant


the lateral exigencies
of graphical concurrences:
belly wraps and toe tinklers:
reductive, seductive,
and yah yah yah!


    §


Counter Fit


'Tis the age of rage/ and disengage.
Stand up now, and rip the page.


    §


Ouvreeahd


estulairiuh ahbohvricahn
ahreepideein insummacahn


    §


What the?


Now some hatchet's in my brain!
I know I threw the hat away.
Come on you guise,
there's a dizzard at the doorknob.
I can hear its fingerings.
1 2 3 4    1 2 3 4    6 7 8


    §


8 from 1


"Maybe just a new kind of emptiness"
Rotates & rotates/ on this blue-white pearl
Fetid with brown from a bajs
Who can't find his nuts/ because he's a squirrel.

"To the attic, I say."  "No! no! not there!
He'll ruin the flavor, the quaff du jour."
"Where then shall we put him?"  "Oh, I don't care:
Maybe a dumpster; a faraway tour."


   [ The first line was once a KSM Lime Tree subtitle. ]



------------------------------------
2007-02-19  Picture This: On the Concept of Poetic Imagery


Brian A. J. Salchert                           

sw00612a-facing.it

Autobio



   Too many of the qualities of my personality, however wondrous
otherwise, are sadly inadequate in the realm of the out-&-about.
The trail behind me of wrong decisions is rutted and briared, and I
cannot say the trail I am presently making is any different.  Eenuff.

§

   This ia a voice out of Springfield, Missouri:  As the "a" in bat:
Blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

§

   Plan Q:  I am a highly visible hermit, but looking at me may require
binoculars or a telescopic lens or special glasses.  I am reading these
days, besides all I read online daily, Clayton Eshleman's Companion
Spider.  I recommend it.

 -

   The noosphere web is constructing itself ex-po-nential-ly.  The end
of time seems near at hand.  Concurrently, the end of humanity as a
biological entity also seems near at hand.  See this 1976 sonnet.

-

   I knew I wanted to say something more, but I did not know what
until I read the post I have linked to below.  I have known a number
of humans younger than I who due to an accident or illness died; yet
I, who could have died numerous times, am still alive; and--however
difficult--know I must strive moment through moment to be a human
worthy of each successive moment given me.  Seconds of silence:
for the grace each needs.  Seconds of: gratitude silence.



------------------------------------
Joshua Corey's "Letter to a Friend"



Brian A. J. Salchert                   

sw00611aih-9and

As It Happens       13


 Had to turn on the heat this morning.  69 is a bit chilly for me.
Welcome to September.

   §

Finally finished posting 49 selected sonnets from my 1976: in 2006.
Did the last six between 10 and 11 PM Aug31.  Two of those were
written in 1962.  If you chance to read some, experience them
however your aesthetic allows.  Further information and links here.
My aesthetic is chameleon-like, kaleidoscopic, cornucopian,
uncertainty-driven.  I am a hermit, a mystery munchkin, a ponderer.
I'm a creature of contraries: emotionally edgy, yet rationally
embedded with aspie characteristics.   

   §

I still have six months of first line and topic work to complete, and
I am not in a get-it-done mood.

   §

For the past week or so there's been a cicada or some such critter
whining ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee most of the night.  It usually starts 
its concert around 9 PM.  Luckily I'm able to sleep through it.



----------------------------------- 
History of Labor Day


Brian A. J. Salchert