sw00241aih-intro

1    Intro to Brian S's     As It Happens

The two major ongoing autobiographical works

I have had online were: Edges of Knowledge:

An Unplanned Autobiography and Brian's

Brain.  I may place what exists of those works

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

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

Yes, numerous prose autobiographical postings

have appeared in this journal since the day I

began it, and each of those can now be placed

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

 

*

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



Brian A. J. Salchert                     

sw00240tdp-poem

This Day's Poem   tdp022707   color-poem

 23

 "Turn"

    G          R          E          E          N


                                'n'



                    B    E    R    R    Y


                                          it.

Brian A. J. Salchert                    

sw00239a-autobio

Intermission

 Today is the first day of the third month

 in my personal calendar.  This morning I

 chopped off my hair and put a new filter

 in the place for one on top of my electric

 furnace.  2007 057 03 1 1 is my date for

 this day.

-

Yesterday morning I 911'd myself to an

Emergency Station.  Wednesday morning

I need to go in for a stress test.  There

is one medication I've decided to not use

anymore unless I get an okay from the

doctor I am to see tomorrow.  I have the

feeling that most of my physical problems

are connected to my osteoporosis.  Will

find out more about that tomorrow also.

-

The latest from the foreign-accent guy,

that alter-ego, who pops into my

above-ground brain

whenever the mood strikes him:

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

"You can't win,

 I tell you.

---

You try?

---

You silly goose."

 

 

Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00238s-br.d6.yellow

Sets: set 2 -
 Birthday Ribbons - Day Six

          "1-16-77      yellow"


          This day I begin
            year 37
                    toward heaven
            though I'm
              someplaces told
            I'm a
              hell-caught fool:
          somewhy   it seems/
                      we/ 
                           just drift
                purgatories,                   
            our left
              shoulders
                angled against
                  door jambs,
            our eyes
              full of nothing--
                their powers
              drawn back
                upon
            themselves
          as the energies of
          black-hole stars,
            our          minds
                so lost
              in the mazes
              of loves
            it's likely we'll
                  never
                consummate
          (despite desires)
              we have to ask
            that if     they're
                          seen
              somewhere
            they should please
            be led back,
                  thank you:

          And today is Sunday
            & ice-age cold
              and bright
              only
          in the snap-
                      ping wind,
          and the Sabbath
          commandment
          we are keeping
                here
            at home:
                     and I still
          would celebrate
            to the riffs             
          a fireplace warmth
              forgetful of
                the -60
                  wind
                  chill
              & the charges to
                    fill a mold:

                Crows
                    bump
                through the
                bleak
                    gusts
          while, snug
          in the poignant caves
          of their choosing,
          bears dream:

                          As
          I celebrate,
            I celebrate:
          had I gone
                to church
           I would have
                celebrated
       thus:
       were I to make love,
          I would celebrate
                          so:
          if I'd go
          early
          to the inn
          to talk & drink,   
        to laugh,                   
            to relax, 
          I/ must      soon
          go to bed  
            to celebrate:
          if I heat               
                this chair
            tapping for
              riches,
                    these acts
                    will be
              my celebration:

          In the freezer
            waits
                  ice
                  cream;
          in the refrigerator,
                  cherry pie:

          I am a man,
                      a kid,
            a corpse,
                      a spirit,
          an insatiable
              spy:
                if you try me,
          you will find
          my
              tolerance long,
          my patience
          lengthy,
                  though
                  I curse
                  & spit:
          my need   
          to be loved and
          to love
                a frozen
                grandiflora,
                  a present
                  forever,
                    ribbons
                    constantly
                            loosened,
          bowed,
                 & twirled &
                 hurled
          in the blank air.

  


~ 
Brian A. J. Salchert                      

sw00237s-br.d5.blue

Sets: set 2 -
 Birthday Ribbons - Day Five

          "1-15-77      blue"


          And the 
          Arctic Tern
              flies farther
                to nest
                  than    any
                      other
                    bird
            because I
                need it
              to:
                  and lives
                  in sunlight
          more than any
            creature
                on this
                    Earth:
            as far as
              10,000 miles
              & 8 solid months
                    of day:

          Today
          Janice & I
          drove north
          northwest
          32 miles
              to celebrate
            my 36th year
              with her mother
                & father
                & 1st sister:
                    Edie,
                    Kenny,
                    Julie:
            spaghetti 'n'
                      sauce
                by Julie;
            banana cream
                & cherry pies
              by Edie;
            when Kenny
                  got home,
              a wish for a
              happy birthday
                with:
          "May you live forever
            and I
                  never die."

          Here & there
              swirling across
            the highway home,
                smoke
                  of snow:
            the mailman brought
            card #3:
                     a greeting
               from Janice's
               brother, David,
               and his wife
                     & boys:
            the Lamplighter
            called:
                    our lamps
                are fixed:

  


~ 
Brian A. J. Salchert                      

sw00236s-br.d4.teal

Sets: set 2 -
 Birthday Ribbons - Day Four

          "1-14-77      teal"


          How I could
                      run
                    & skate,
                  tease
                          the winds,
            yet not until
            competing
            was a lie
            test
            my gift
            100 yards!
                        How
              confess
              & confess
            until ears scream,
          yet breathe
          so little
            of who I am!
                        born
          into Fond du Lac
              (unfit to smile)
            to godly parents,
              even if
            to a mom too gentle &
            a dad too firm:

                Take me for
            a conservative
                    guy:
                  often enough
            a demanding 
                        encounter
                  closes me
                though I
                           want
              to say
                     I love you
                     love 
                       love you
                with ringing arms
            & deep-tongued eyes,
                  hold you with
                entrancing kisses,
                    though I
                             surge
                        inside:
                  the arms so
                slightly rising,
                  the half-
                smile,
                  the corny
                phrase:

          And we climbed
              with
                    Bobby's kite,
                      climbed
                      & climbed,
                until it seemed
                      our climbing
              would never end
              though we knew
                how tense
              the strain
                on
                   the curved
                    string:
                  the exalting
                & exalted
                              kite
                finally found
                  by the
              railroad tracks
                  over
                half-a-mile
                    away:

  


~ 
Brian A. J. Salchert                      

sw00235s-br.d3.red

Sets: set 2 -
 Birthday Ribbons - Day Three 

          "1-13-77     red"


          From the spools
          of memory,
          vignettes
                    appear:

          me with my
                     father
          in our garage
            mixing cement,
            sawing a 2-by-4,
            storing screens;
          out in our lot
            digging
                  postholes,
            trimming a bush,
                planting,
                  mowing,
                    raking,
              chopping
              a head
                off
                a chicken;
            in a rocking boat
              listlessly
              waiting
                for some
                tricked perch
                to liven us;
            in our basement--
              with 15 kids from
              the neighborhood--
                mesmerized by
              "No Indians, Please"
              & World War II news
                  flickering on
                the projector
                screen portion
                of the east wall,
              or the Lionel
                (oh, my 2 sisters
                 were also there)
              as it clattered on
              its well-governed
                            track,
              or
                --with other
                  boys only--
                      the keyhole
                  ladies
                in the frosted
                bar glasses;
          in our living room
            rollicked
            by Milton Berle,
            or sombered by a
            Graf Zeppelin stamp
              he      will sell:

          with
          my mom
          in our kitchen
            working a
            rolling pin,
            pressing
            cookie cutters
              for santas, bells,
              gingerbread men;
            drawing maps;
          on the stairs
            picking up
                  forgotten
                  toys,
            vacuuming--
              I day-
              dreaming,
              playing
              with sound--
                          yet
            that whirring
            by the moss phlox!
              the dwarf hyacinths!
              that larger
              than bumblebee!
         that--                   
              I whisper
                    to my mother
                    to quietly           
              come closer as,
                        carefully,        
                    I crouch
                    on my toes--
              that
                  ruby,
                yes, male,
                      yes, Ruby-
            throated Hummingbird,
              ah!
                  windmill
                  of the Lord!:

            with           whomever
                      snatching
                    tadpoles,
                 those
              wriggly wriggly
                  out of Hadley's
              inlet!:
            and those long
                    evening walks
              with Gary,
                        Ron,
                            Tom
                 and the radio,
              listening
              to the Braves'
                 games (through
                        crickets/
                        nighthawks/
                        revvings
                        of cars)
                   when the
                   Braves rode
                   Milwaukee's
                          hills
                       chieftain tall!

~ 
Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00234s-br.d2.white

Sets: set 2 - 
 Birthday Ribbons - Day Two

          "1-12-77     white"


          Such things
          to choose,
          let ricochet, 
          dodge!:
                cornucopias
                tumble
                at us!:
              anyone's
              Gobis
              Urals,
              Niles:
              anyone's
              riddles:
              anyone's
              mines:
              the ticking,
              creaking,
              sputtering
              of time:
              loves /
                terrors,
              angers /
                delights,
              rots /
                fruitions--
                      of the
                      globed
                      & bright
                      & juicy
                      Snow,
                      of the
                      dandy
                      civilized
                      yam,
                      of a
                      roseate
                      star:

          Such
            cor-
                 nu-
                      copias,
            ka-
                lei-
                      doscopes,
            skies!:

          in the root web
          of an oak,
                     cantatas
                     of droplets
                     of water,
            strength-laden
            insects
            of soil,
                dreams
                for the deep
                choreography
                of leaves:

                       we are
          axial
                & galactic,
              expecting
                        to die:

          The ribbons
          of our commitments,
           frayed,
                   faded:
            we can only
            replace
            & replace:
          the presents
          of our caring,
          borrowed,
                  taken:
            we can only
            return
            & return:

          Aphrodite
                  out of the
                  sea,
          Artemis
                  out of the
                  moon,
          Apollo
                  out of the             
                  sun:

          Crawl,
                 walk,
                       run,
            jump                                                     
                     to fly,
              excitation
              to excitation
                tingling
                our spirits,
                our spines,
            mad,           
            foolish,
            blindingly
                       divine:

              At the gate,
              the sagging
              splintering
              gate,
                    we meet,
              say hello,
                       enter
                where mists
          from the ocean
                         touch
                  & sway;
            and the curve
          of our communions,
              speeding
                    to the peaks
                of who we are
                  in our hearts
                      & bones:
                gentle,
                    fierce,
             ancient:
               as the blossoms
               of the void:
                     obliterates
             adagio:

                      atoms
                      in
                         me
                      shivering
                      atoms
                      in
                         you
                      &
                      atoms
                      in
                         you
                      shivering
                      atoms
                      in
                         me:

          In the measure
          of this quack stem
          I chew on,
          in the hazel
          penetration
          of your eyes,
              Florida
              & oranges,
              California
              cliffs,
              the marshes
              of a child's
              warm
              Wisconsin,
            someone
            rummaging garbage
            in an alley,
            someone
            who has made
            the bedding clean:

 


~
Brian A. J. Salchert                      

sw00233s-br.d1.violet

Sets: set 2 -
 Birthday Ribbons - Day One

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

          "1-11-77     violet"


          And the wrapped
                     presents:
              dimensions,
              horizons,
              trajectories?

            Violet
                     white
              red
                  teal
               blue
              yellow,

          the anxiously freed
            birthday ribbons
                      swirl &
                          cork-
                        screw
            through the
                        silly
                  air

          as I,
          drowsy
          in the pinched
          light,
          compose:






 


~
Brian A. J. Salchert                      

sw00232a-old.poem

an old poem
-
I have several unpublished books of poems, 
2 of which are Seminary and Naked Exerciser.
Today I found in the latter/ a piece I was a
shade surprised to see there because most
of the poems in that book are homoerotic,
and this piece fits in with those in only an
extremely off-to-the-side way.  It is a con-
versation poem, probably between a father
and a son of his.  If so, it's a fictive one
that somewhat speaks to the psychological 
differences between me and my father.  I do
not know when I wrote it, but the typed copy
I have of it is from the time Janice & I were
living in an apartment on Forest Avenue in
Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. 

* * *


"The Trouble Between Us"


you heard what i said
gut it

but

no buts about it
get going

o-     kay

maybe if you'd stop your daydreaming once
you'd learn something

i     i

now what you muttering
it won't bite

where do       i start

what
haven't i shown you often enough

i     guess so

you guess so
don't you know

yes

well then
what you waiting for

n-     nothing

oh scram
i'll do it myself






-------
2007 055 02 4 6       2-24-07
   I so easily make typos I sometimes
elide anger and begin laughing at myself.
Just moments ago that happened, and--
as often also happens at such times--a
voice with a foreign accent broke/ into
my consciousness:
"You are not a perfect being.
 Do you not understand?
 Sometimes, it seems, you just don't get it.
 You are
 not
 a
 perfect
 being."
                        Brian A. J. Salchert


- 

 

sw00231a-calm.b4.storm

Weather Lull - but not for long

 

This afternoon the worst of the rough weather will be

whipping through.  Some 60 mph gusts could occur.

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

plugging my system again soon.  It is now near AM

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

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

the socket on the west wall and the light switch and

the socket on the south wall quit working.  Even

flipping the breaker toggle back on did not help.

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

 

sw00230sc-set2.br.links

Sets: set 2 - Birthday Ribbons

 Introduction
 -

 Birthday Ribbons is a ribbon-like 
 birthday-of-mine poem in 6 imagined 
 colors, each representing a day in a
 set of consecutive days in January of
 1977.  The colors are: violet, white,
 red, teal, blue, yellow.
 ~
      violet is at     Day One
 -
 Day One
 -
      white is at      Day Two
 -
 Day Two
 -
      red is at        Day Three
 -
 Day Three
 -
      teal is at     Day Four
 -
 Day Four
 -
      blue is at       Day Five
 -
 Day Five
 -
      yellow is at     Day Six
 -
 Day Six
 -

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



           [ last modified: 2008-10-16 ]



Brian A. J. Salchert                      

sw00229olp-poets

See Bill Knott's



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



Brian A. J. Salchert                     

sw00228a-weather

Nasty Weather

will be blustering in later today and into Saturday/

afterwhich there will be a short lull, and then even

more severe rains (with the possibility of large hail)

will be swiping through Saturday afternoon.  There

also is an off-chance of a tornado somewhere in

the Missouri Ozarks.  Therefore, this system will

be unplugged later today and likely will not be up

again until Sunday.  Given the wind strengths that

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

electricity goes out again.  Wuooooooooo ooooo

swish swash heewwwwwwww youuuuuuu pit pit

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

wuooooooooo youuuuuuu

- - - - -

 

 

for copyright information see homepage

} } }

 

~
Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00227a-sexuality

Sexuality



"The Salchertian Scale"


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



- - - - -
* I have frontal lobe and generalized epilepsy which 
  a certain medicine has been keeping under control.


Brian A. J. Salchert                   

sw00226tdp-poem

This Day's Poem   tdp022107

 22

 Epitaph


 My greatest poems
           are among
                     the missing.

 They knew better
           than I/
                      what to do.

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

sw00225t-tech

                                                  Sprintedon Hollow


Technorati Claim


 Technorati Favorites
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I have not, and do not intend to, use this feature.
See Technorati if you are interested in it.

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-
When I joined/ this blog was known as Sawlcurt's Weblog.


 Copyright © 2007 Brian A. J. Salchert
  Thinkiing Lizard - All rights reserved.

sw00224a-twonotes

Two Personal Notes



 Now 66, I am a retired widower and a
gregarious heuristic hermit with sundry
interests.  I presently reside in Missouri's
SW sector, but I was born and raised in
Wisconsin; and, until recently, I had long
resided in Florida.





Poets&Writers Directory


*

Brian A. J. Salchert                     

sw00223a-tags

Title Tags and Names

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

places, the name for my autobiographical work

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

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

Edges of Knowledge.  I do have a dozen or

more journals which have never been published

although I have published excerpts online such

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

Donald Duck Journal because that is where I

originally wrote it.    

-

In one of those places I also had pages devoted

to my current heuristic number theory meanders.

Number Theory Investigations was its title.  I had

in the 1990's penned a work entitled Meanderings

of an Amateur Mathematician which I then took

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

get them bound in plastic ring binders.  There are

several heuristic mathematical papers I've written

which deal with problems not related to Number

Theory.  Most of those were in my first journal in

AOL space, but IE messaged a concern about the

publisher, and I finally decided to delete that AOL

journal.

-

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

places where I had had 6 years worth of efforts

online is because IE indicated suchdispleasure

with them it literally forced me out.  I tried two

other places, one of which I had been briefly at

several years before, but internal difficulties at

those places necessitated I leave them.  Why

am I back here in AOL journal space?  One day

an AOL representative talked me into trying it

again, and so far her thumbs-up attitude has

proven to be warranted.  Although I am doing

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

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

the lines here are not single-spaced.  With the

help given at on online site I do not recall the

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

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

not be best to be here, I am content.

-

If you have perused my weblog you already know

what is here, but some of my major projects here

I want to write about again.  This is centrally a

poem journal which so far has only poems written

by me.  There is a natural number summation

sequence entry.  There are weather entries.  I

have written about certain other poets.  Links to

pages of interest can be found here.  Here and

there I have written about my personal calendar.

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

they originally were composed in a 123 Publish

space.  Being somewhat an eclectic, I can never

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

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

which I used that national bicentennial year for

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

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

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

the academic sphere my first book, a book which

had one letter in it but was otherwise all poems,

was published.  The 2007 version of that book is

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

night auditor in the hospitality industry, a time

during which I became more an outsider.  I began

my own "company" and for a while used various

pen names.  Such was the case in 1980 when one

of the books I published in the cassette medium,

a book of poems in which each poem evidences a

different posture, made its Thinking Lizard way into

the world and into the Library of Congress.  In this

journal there is a 2007 version of that collection of

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

Poem" series, and yesterday I began placing a work

of poem sets online here.  Both of these ventures

are unclosed in that neither is already a completed

work.  There are other complete books of poems I

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

of them will show.

 

Brian A. J. Salchert

sw00222s-set1.tc7.cat.ditty

Sets: set 1 - Tillie
   6 cat poems and 1 cat ditty



 [ The cat ditty below
   was published online
   about six years ago,
   but I don't at this moment--
   10:19pm 2006-05-12--
   know where, though I do
   recall it being Google-accessible
   for a time.  I have sent
   an e-mail query to/
   the company I think/
   might be able to find out,
   but I doubt I will get a response.
   05/15/06: The date on the
             letter-size sheet
   I found it typed on/ is June 13, 1979,
   and it is signed: Alden St. Cloud.
   2007 050 02 4 1
     As it happens, I did get a reply;
     but the woman who sent it said
     they were not able to find it in
     their archives. ]

-
-
-

"Where'd the Cat Go?"


Who knows, who knows
where the kitty-kat goes,

following her nose
through the rains & snows;

or, how the sun rose
between her toes.

Who knows.
Who knows.




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

sw00221s-set1.tc6.cat.poem

Sets: set 1 - Tillie
 6 cat poems and 1 cat ditty



"The Chair"


     The platform rocker,
a long while around--
its wood: maple,
its upholstery: aged/ rough olive-green
                patterned with fanciful blossoms
                of rusty green & rusty orange--

     that I use when I read,
     and often leave a book on,

     is also the chair
     Tillie sometimes uses
     when she is tuckered.
     She approaches it with
     a quick mew,  then
     locates where
     her body displaces
     the dull indoor air,
                          & ignores
my book
with a mild disdain, giving it merely a
why-is-this-thing-still-here
        glance/
                as she settles beyond it.





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

sw00220s-set1.tc5.cat.poem

Sets: set 1 - Tillie
 6 cat poems and 1 cat ditty



"Tillie Dreams"


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





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

sw00219s-set1.tc4.cat.poem

Sets: set 1 - Tillie
 6 cat poems and 1 cat ditty



"In a Favored Place"


Curled in the chair
as if in air

on her left side
so her whites hide

for the most part
as her slow heart

visible in
her pulsing skin

while legs stretch out
& her tail's stout

& almost goes
to her tired toes,

our Tillie rests
from moods & guests,

and/ keeps her grace.





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

sw00218s-set1.tc3.cat.poem

Sets: set 1 - Tillie
 6 cat poems and 1 cat ditty



"Thief"


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





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

sw00217s-set1.tc2.cat.poem

Sets: set 1 - Tillie
 6 cat poems and 1 cat ditty



"2 Visions"


Early one morning,
though I knew she was passing
the foot of our bed--
I could hear her mewing, and see
the end half of her tail gliding
above the static waves of our covers--
I hallucinated Tillie
sitting in the doorway,
the spirit of her
in the doorway,
silent & proper;
and while I tried several times
to shake it away,
it wouldn't disappear,
but stayed what seemed
an unusually
long while,
until I thought "Oh no!--
as cheering as she often is,
I don't think I could handle
two "Tillies";
and once more/ shook my head.

And that dream
the other night!--
the white paws,
white breast,
white triangle (mini-pick beauty mark)
to the left of her black nose,
& the otherwise dominant medium gray
& those amber eyes
snuggling the solid lighter gray
of another cat,
the two of them
impishly sitting toward me
between the closet door & the bed
as if they both
belonged
there.





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

sw00216sc-set1.tc.links

Sets: set 1 - Tillie
   6 cat poems and 1 cat ditty



"Amusement"


On the other side of the bed
where an extra blanket's
crumpled
in the corner,
meowings & thumpings:
Tillie's clawless front paws
stuffing the injured
3-inch wire
covered & flanged with red paper
(the bread wrapper tie)
under the worn old rose hump;
then backing off,
leading her crouched body, waiting
for the right moment/ to
attack,
bat
the viper,
snatch it
from its shelter,
raising it to the top of her stretch
& collapsing backwards,
snapping it/
out of her mouth
to bat,
twist,
hide it again . . ./ and again.




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

 links to rest of set:
 -
 2 Visions
 -
 Thief
 -
 In a Favored Place
 -
 Tillie Dreams
 -
 The Chair
 -
 Where'd the Cat Go?
 -
 -

[ last modified: 2008-10-16 ]


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

sw00215sgc-links4sets

Sets:                                                  

 a rather amorphous book of poems
 sgc = Sets general contents
 77 poems in 5 sets
 [ last modified: 2008-10-15 ]


02/19/07
Due to an impasse with Teasings, I've decided
to begin revealing a book that is not yet a book,
and may never be a completed book.  The only
reason for its existence at all is that it contains
definable groups of poems, which is why I've
entitled it: Sets.  The first of these sets is
going to be my cat poem set, all but one
of which center on the first cat Janice and I
acquired.  Of the three cats we lived with, it
was the largest and most enjoyable.  We never
did have more than one cat at a time. 

 -
 first set: Tillie - in which are 6 poems
                   related to a once real cat, and 
                   1 cat ditty related to no real cat.
                   See sw00216sc-links  
                   through sw00222s-ditty
 -
 Tillie
 -
 -
 second set: Birthday Ribbons - which
                   is a poem to myself: 6 ribbons,
                   with each a different color and
                   each on a different day
                   See sw00230sc-links
 -
 Birthday Ribbons
 -
 -
 third set: Thatah - a set of 6 formalistic
                   poems written in October of 1966.
                   See swp00245sc-links
 -
 Thatah
 -
 -
 fourth set: Accompaniments: Where There Is Room
                 are 37 poems I wrote for W. S. Merwin 
                 on pages 3-15; 17-28; 30, 32, 33, 35,
                 37, 38, 39, 41, 42, 49, 51, and 65
                 of my copy of  W. S. Merwin's Writings
                     to an Unfinished Accompaniment
                 in and around 1973.  One I had to revise
                 extensively. 
 -
 Accompaniments: Where There Is Room
 -
 -
 fifth set: String of Days - 21 poems of 4 lines each
               for the 21 days from 27Dec82 to 16Jan83
 -
 String of Days
 -
 - 



Brian A. J. Salchert                       

sw00214i-calendars

Calendars


February 18, 2007, is/was the first day
of the Chinese New Year.  If calendars
interest you, and if you haven't already
been there, go to 

http://webexhibits.org/calendars/

I read about the history of both
the Chinese calendar and the
calendars the Mayas used.



Brian A. J. Salchert                      

sw00213usabys-note

Regarding sonnet opus 1976: in 2006
  as of February 17, 2007



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




 - - - - -
Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00212a-outage

Power Outage and Gusty Winds

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



Brian A. J. Salchert                     

sw00211a-summary

A Summary of Sorts

 2007 047 02 3 5

 Summary
 -


In this journal, among various other pages,
are three books of my poems and another
(This Day's Poem) which is being written
in an inspirational manner.  1976: in 2006,
a work of 351 sonnets, is the first book.
The second book is Rooted Sky 2007, 
which was originally published in November 
of 1972.  The third book is Postures 2007, 
which was originally published in 1980.  
At the moment I am not certain which book 
will be the fourth, but I am leaning toward
letting it be a late 1980's 18-poem chapbook
entitled Teasings because in it is an unusual
significant-to-me lengthy poem I feel this
is a good moment for it to appear again.

-

2007 048 02 3 6  Update:   There now
                                       are 352
sonnets in 1976: in 2006.  Whether there
will ever be more I cannot say, but my
intention is to fill all the gaps.  I am not
concerned about when the revised or
new sonnets are written.  1976 was a work
of 366 sonnets, and I want the current
version to also contain 366 sonnets.


- - - - -



[ Other than the automated number
  each entry is given, I may devise
  my own identification system for
  the entries in this journal. ]



Brian A. J. Salchert                     

sw00210a-hmmm

3 Hmmm Moments


 -

Just downloaded and installed 17 updates.
The present time is PM 11:17.

Several days ago I got a $13.15 refund check.
Today I paid $13.15 for a box of film for my Polaroid 600.

Recently at the pharmacy I use, I needed 58 cents.
I dumped out the coins in my coin purse: 
 one quarter, three dimes, and three pennies.



- - - - -
Brian A. J. Salchert                      

sw00209a-blessings

So


even if there isn't any
viable St. Valentine,
and even if no birds
mate on this winter day,
if the colors about and about
delighted your molecules, good.

Blessings on everyone.



-
Brian A. J. Salchert                      

sw00208a-atj

02 11 08         Some information on this page is no longer true.


04 09 07             atj = about this journal
 -
 The claim immediately below is no longer valid
 because the name of this journal no longer is
 Salchert's Weblog:  It is Sprintedon Hollow.
-
-
Brian A. J. Salchert Claims Salchert's Weblog


I, Brian A. J. Salchert, hereby claim
Salchert's Weblog as properly mine.
I also thank AOL for the space and the
technology I use to manifest my journal:
Salchert's Weblog.  If my doing this
here seems a touch goofy, then it does.
-
See Technorati Profile
and
Directory at www.pw.org
-

-
My email address is:
thinkinglizard@aol.com
-
My journal's address is:
http://journals.aol.com/thinkinglizard/bajs/
-
When  you see a 5-number string such as
2007 044 02 3 2
you are seeing my personal date for the
13-month calendar I created last year.
Each month in my calendar, except for
month 13, has 28 days.  Today's date
in the calendar in use is: 2007 02 13.
My date above equals today's date.
The second number in my date is the
day of the year.  The fourth number
is the week of the month.  The fifth
number is the day of week.  If you
add 13 to 31 you get 44.  If you add
2 to 14 to 28 you also get 44.  Any
date in my calendar which at year's
end will be a number containing more
digits than it presently does will have
one or two zeros in front of it.  That
is why "044" and "02" for today.  Month
13 will always have one free day which
I have decided to name "Happy Day";
but, in a leap year, it will always have a
second free day which I have decided
to call "Love Day".  I want each year 
and each month of each year to begin 
on a Monday, even though I am using
numbers in place of day names.  I do
not think I am the first to envision this,
but I want day 7 to always be Sunday.
-



Brian A. J. Salchert                    

sw00207tdp-poem

This Day's Poem   tdp021307

 21

 As the Desk Lamp Flickers


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

 - - - - -
Brian A. J. Salchert                     

sw00206p-overview

Postures 2007 - Overview


2007 043 02 3 1

  All 57 of the poems which are 
presently in Postures 2007 are now
up.  They are a strange lot.  Yet
among them are 2 sestinas and
2 odes.  Yes, there are sonnets;
but there is also an edgy ballad 
and a sly selection spoken by
an animal housed in a museum.
That piece has three-line stanzas
in which the final words in each
line in a given stanza rhyme.  Oh,
there are, of course, numerous
free verse poems.  Also, there is
one villanelle, and several short
pieces which are for children; but
the only way the volume coheres
is in the variety of stances which
can be found in it.  Even each of 
the poems about death has its own
posture.

[ 2008-06-12 belated note:  
   For familial reasons, a poem
   I found among my papers
   was added as #23 of Side 1. 
   This book now has 58 poems. ]



 - - - - - 
Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00205p-poem35s2

Postures 2007:  #35 from Side Two



"Francis Grey Owl, Walking"


Tumbleweed,
skeleton of earth,
what warriors
              dance
in the airy circlings
of your bones?
what squaws & maidens
                      cry?





-
Brian A. J. Salchert                   

sw00204p-poem34s2

Postures 2007:  #34 from Side Two



"Epiphanies"

  [ "Epiphanies" is a poem based on
    a true story told to me by a high
    school bow-and-arrow deer hunter
    in 1973.  It is an attempt by me to
    vicariously experience his experience. ]


Dreaming the blood of deer
as the sun dies redder & redder,
I kneel with the wind in the corn,
set my bow, listen.
The leaves barely whisper,
my spine knots from the cold;
the spaces before me grow small.
Crackles!  A doe!  Her fawn.
Fingers, eyes/ tighten;
the deer sink in the stalks.
What sun I inhaled turns shadow.
Then, just to my side, a buck!
in this Indian day's last light;
& I see him gutted & hanging,
his wildness beguiling my tongue,
but can only look/ wonder,
caught where I can't let go.





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

sw00203p-poem33s2

Postures 2007:  #33 from Side Two

"Four for John Ashbery"



1.    Erasures


Begin with three white nines
chalked on a green board:
trees / people bowed in a wind;
oval nerfs standing on their tails;
lasso symbols.

Erase to three zeros:
stylized eggs;
invitations to dive in.

Erase to crescents,
reeds,
parentheses:
             .  '  '



2.    Bones that Speak / Flesh that Reasons


Heavy with seeds,
this is our garden
which--when rains & rays of sun step on--explodes
into roots, stems, leaves, blossoms:
strictured irregularities
that pulse
           /
             breathe



3.    Passages


Winds thread weeds.
Bodies thread madness.

White-hot deeds.
White-hot sadness.

Nailed needs.
Nailed gladness.

Spirits slither.
Ignorance stabs.



4.    Portrait


Every few seconds    loud clouds
flash their roots of fire,
brains crest with inspirations;
stars dig in,
waiting for arrivals:

in the atmospheres of carrion hearts
the luck of double rainbows:

soles held by earths crossed,
heels and toes,
relaxing & tightening daring bowels,
wander a little, rock:

bit by bit, time swallows us;
we do not digest well.

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

                     Brian Arthur Salchert ]


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

sw00202p-poem32s2

Postures 2007:  #32 from Side Two



"Memorandum"


The day I learned,
a 3-step approach
lefthander taught me.

Odd.  Having
watched, and
heard, the pros,

I should have
started sooner,
& properly;

but I,
muddy romantic
(a kid

determined
to wait until
his 16th birthday,

more into when
than how or where
or why

no matter his
supposed desire
to be great,

holding the ball
comfortably
before him,

his left hand
underneath it
even though

it was just an
alley ball &
didn't fit right,

the smoothness
required
hard to master,

depending so much--
as it must--
on his knowledge

of both his
own body's
characteristics

and those of/ the
objects of/ his
serious play,

eyes concentrating
on the third arrow,
the 1-3 pocket,

his distance
to the foul line
carefully measured,

his position,
posture, balance
checked & set, yet

his crucial first step
and pushaway
entered

too hurriedly
to create
that flow

and establish
that direction
needed/ to

carry his
ball
driving into its

target
at the height of its
power

and/ at/ its
optimum angle
& speed & roll

to topple from its
forward apex
to its 4-pin base

the smart triangle
of precisely arranged
10 ring-necked pins),

foul, gutter; spin naught
but the pins of pride
to the floor.




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

sw00201p-poem31s2

Postures 2007:  #31 from Side Two



"To My Student Poets"


Tonight
the beginning of acorns

tonight
the sea
the sea

I am standing before you
like the leaves
in a wind-
rattled
           tree

Yesterday
                I would have said
                the dead
know

but not
tonight

You have come to me
to understand
how language moves
& you
          can move it

but I can only give you
silence

Today
the beginning
                     of acorns

Tonight
words
grow down



[ This poem is for the students in my first
  creative writing class.  It was originally
  written on 8-31-71/ and revised on 10-3-72.
  For the revision I used a pen containing
  red ink.  Both the original & the revision
  are on the front flyleaf pages of a copy
  of the paperback Contemporary American
  Poetry, selected and introduced by
  Donald Hall, and was first published--it is
  now 9:11pm, and today is Saturday, 8-26-06--
  in 1962/ with yearly reprints from 1964 thru
  1970, meaning that my copy is from the 1970
  reprint batch.  The publisher is Penguin
  Books Inc., 7110 Ambassador Road, Baltimore,
  Maryland 21207.  Donald Hall holds the copy-
  right.  I have chosen to post my revision here. ]

[ 2007 042 02 2 7:  There will be more about this,
                    and about that night, later. ]




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

sw00200p-poem30s2

Postures 2007:  #30 from Side Two



"Between / Within"


Rising, falling, the leaves could not quite cross
His window's length, and now the wind wrinkled
Less and less those spades.  There would be dying
Even there.  He tries to forget that water
Closing over her, that torrid distance
Through night brightened by the suck and whine of fire.

But how?  Under what should orange fire
Be hidden?  Under the weight of a cross?
Clenching his pillow to stuff the distance
Of total blindness into his wrinkled
Eyes, distance to shut away water,
Fire, he wrestles with what has no dying

Outside of--sleep, hurls his pillow; and dying
With the wind, arches over his bed, a fire
Himself, choking.  Singing beside the water
That night, was it so, where neither one could cross,
Enter, crumpling toward the ashes, as wrinkled
Again, he squirms on his sheet?  Distance,

Distance?  I saw him drop.  I know the distance;
But the heart?  If his body were dying,
My senses wouldn't be so lost, wrinkled;
But it's mostly his heart which remembers the fire
And whatever barrier he did not cross,
Yet feels he should have.  She used to water

That wildflower on our desk.  Tom watched her water
It often, having brought it a moon's distance
After all, for her.  He looks at the cross
Above it: her gift.  Cross, plant: dying
Unites them too, now.  With no divined fire
To keep earth's creatures green, they have wrinkled

In their thirst.  He rises--as his wrinkled
Bedding shows.  Shall I follow him: to the water,
The North Platte, where that orange fire
Sparked the green to black; or any distance?
His heart is his, not mine; his dying--.
Falling, rising; Tom, Sharon, flower, cross--

Between these a confusing, wrinkled distance
Conjures a wall: the water of their dying,
And that human kind of fire/ he has yet to cross. 





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

sw00199p-poem29s2

Postures 2007   #29 from Side Two           



"November (the Last Day of)"


Overcast airs, their warmth, hour into hour,
dropping from near sixty to below freezing,
all this Sunday long/ siren through our windows

as you, Percy Bysshe Shelley, borne to me
more heated, more cold, more human/ by one
Richard Holmes/ than I ever would have seen,

scream across your Adriatic tomb,
wrestle with the macabre, elope, divorce,
menage, entrance, politicize, and con,

and moving by necessity from house
to nervous house, moving by whim, by art,
explore the end of each new thing, the source,

till I am bugged by vessels torn apart
and fantasize rare healings, mind in heart.





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

sw00198p-poem28s2

Postures 2007:  #28 from Side Two



"To Us"

[ George Bernard Shaw said that if Man ever hopes
  to transcend to a higher level he must exercise a
  heightened "command over himself" and concurrently
  go to those places where Nature retains "command
  over Man".
  -
  I leave it to you to find his exact words. ]



The matter of our beings
Spattering into the deadly air;
Forests turning inward--
Silent, bare;
The movements of our rivers
Slowing everywhere:

I do not know.


Technos, Technos,
Pinching out the stars;
Butterflies and woollies
Beneath our cars:
Nothing that we look at
Will be ours . . .

Who do not know.


Sarah, Johnny, Pat,
Chalking on a wall,
Wonder at the breezes,
Why they crawl:
Empty is your wisdom
If Homo sapiens falls,

And does not know.


Consciousness encumbered,
Knowledge that conceals;
Broken eggshells,
Broken fields:
Oh God of our awareness,
We are heels,

Who cannot know.


Holy, holy, holy,
Wholly, wholly, whole,
Bodies without number
Penetrate each soul:
Earth is what we make it,
Pole to pole,

Who will now know.





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

sw00197p-poem27s2

Postures 2007:  #27 from Side Two



"20° Breeze"


The snow fence crackles
like a paper bag





[ "20° Breeze" was
   originally published in Abbey. ]



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

sw00196p-poem26s2

Postures 2007:  #26 from Side Two

"From this high bridge"


i drop
a stone

a duckfoot shape
                 fluttering
           indian red speckled green

a moulting
summer tanager
               in a long slow glide
   over rapid
   russet water
   & stands of cedar

a soundless
splash
       of light

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

sw00195p-poem25s2

Postures 2007:  #25 from Side Two



"November trees"


scraggly grey

emerge through fog

arrayed with diamonds






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

sw00194p-poem24s2

Postures 2007:  #24 from Side Two



"Registration"

[ Explanation:  The following is what I call  

  a found poem/ because the content of it is 
  not mine, but the words of one David Max, 
  a student who (some 35 years ago) came 
  to me for registration counseling, which is  
  why the "Registration" title.  While there, 
  he asked about how a poem is written.  I   
  do not remember my response, or even if 
  I had one; but I decided to listen closely
  to him, hoping I could somehow use his 
  words--in the exact order he spoke them-- 
  to create an example of how a poem might   
  be written.  That is why I kept the 4-letter  
  word in it.  Only this poem's form is mine.  
  That is why I chose both his stress-filled 
  words of the moment and also those words he  
  used to reveal a certain more pleasant past.
  That is why I placed his words on the page 
  as I did, and why I presented our example  
  to him before he left.
  -
  The opportunities which foster poems can  
  come at any time from any where; therefore,  
  those who would write poems need to be ever/ 
  ready for them. ]

           for David Max


"Good grief!
Not gonna have any time to eat
on Thursdays

what with all these classes
during the noon hour--
shit!

Did I really
want
this schedule?

-

Took a trip once
to Oregon
with a friend

We spent
entire afternoons
tromping along rivers

not even the rain
stopped us--
we ate apples

& swam."





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

sw00193p-poem23s2

Postures 2007:  #23 from Side Two



"In the Arcadia High Cafeteria"


To the dance
of the pots & pans,
the chance
meetings
of the pots & pans,
where all the latest gossip's
turned & tossed

I, with my awkward
steps &
words,
shout to talk

and if what I say
waltzes right on out there
or boogies
am satisfied

and simply hope my listeners
by their sounds
& moves
can tell me how they feel,
can boo or laugh,
or silently but well
across my brain's gray floor
draw patterns
with their eyes.





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

sw00192p-poem22s2

Postures 2007:  #22 from Side Two



"From a third-floor window"


two girls
making a snowman

who will not be made

arms quickly formed
punched on his body

fall off

Maybe his eyes
if they looked

would tell them something

but there isn't time
and besides

he must have arms

Not that they
want him

to hug them

but even a snowman
fan-twig headdress & all

ought to be whole

So the chestnut girl
prances again into drifts

though he will not laugh

and the grayish blonde
stoops around him

though he will not speak

And finally
after arms & arms

they are satisfied

and the window
seems like a canvas

happily painted on

For my memory's sake
I turn from it

but within the hour

am back
to nothing but bumps of snow

my headdress spread on the ground





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

sw00191p-poem21s2

Postures 2007:  #21 from Side Two



"For a Marriage"



Things human begin;
things human end:

some in the haze of happenstance;
some in the brightness of rite.

Today we gather with two
to once more grow into one

so that shadows shrink in despair
as our ages dance into flight.


Loves wake on a leaf;
hates nod in a hole:

each of us birds of day;
each of us birds of night.

Fingers fidget & grasp
in holy anticipation,

feeling the real & imagined rings
in their charged delight.


Lord of hours we think we waste,
Lord of moraines & lakes & sky,

Lord of beings we fear,
Lord of the rude & slight,

Lord of labors in & out,
Lord of re-creation,

bless our joys / bless our pains,
and ring this marriage we celebrate

with life-fulfilling light.





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

sw00190p-poem20s2

Postures 2007:  #20 from Side Two



"Newlyweds End-of-Rite Petition"



Father, Son, Spirit, Mary,

be with us
as we walk toward the doors;

be with us
as we savor the air.


Father, Son, Spirit, Mary,

be with us
when our spirits stomp the floors;

be with us
when our bodies touch with care.




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

sw00189p-poem19s2

Postures 2007:  #19 from Side Two       



"Wedding Toast"

   (for Janet and Hiroshi Araoka
        October 17, 1970)


The sun rises; the eagle flies.
Husband, wife,
Springtime.





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

sw00188p-poem18s2

Postures 2007:  #18 from Side Two       



"Recalling Mr. Tabet (1907-1972)"


It's been a long while now
since my last haircut;

it'll be longer
still;

it was not so long
twenty years ago.

Sitting, turning, waiting,
his fingers/voice

(touches
 I think were gentle;

 sounds
 I think were kind,

 yet cannot bring
 to my vision),

time after time
changing me,

I grew quiet/
and daydreamed.

To the looks in his mirror,
the smiles,

the simple experience
of being there

was what I marked,
and will ever care to.





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

sw00187p-poem17s2

Postures 2007:  #17 from Side Two           



"Of the Passing of George Arnold"


Closing in on Easter
& the marshmallow bunnies
& the eggs dyed & named

& the front door's window
& the clematis leaves,
brown, & the trees, gray,

Jim's moving beyond
to the bright realm of the spirit,
home of the fighter of dragons,

turns my seeing around
to a budding of quiet joy
because this uncle was one

who would not/ wait for spring.





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

sw00186p-poem16s2

Postures 2007:  #16 from Side Two

"After the Funerals of
 a Friend and an Uncle"


  1

The dead
have no way
of looking
the same
as you
or I

Cursed in changes
from fertile eggs
to wrinkles
blessed
in the air
and earth
they have moved beyond
our indecisions
left
our tables

Yellow   waxy
deprived of blood
they cannot blush
or whiten


  2

Milkweed in
the circling field
blooms   dries   splits

and we
don't want
to know

[ "After the Funerals . . ." was
   originally published in Sou'wester. ]



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

sw00185p-poem15s2

Postures 2007:  #15 from Side Two



"Funeral Words"


Whoever dies,
dies not,
but like a sometime maple
rings and rings
and puts forth leaves
and new wood,
and in brilliance
pulls back;

is a joy, a sorrow, a grace

in the soils
and winds
and lights
and rains
of the memories
of those of us
who press on,
Earth-alive.





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

sw00184p-poem14s2

Postures 2007:  #14 from Side Two



"Watermelon"


You have no conception
of what you are in
black seeds, white seeds, me

no conception

yet your music
cleans us all
even to the root-ends of trees

And the sharp stars--

if I surf
in the waters
of your sound

swirl and/     rainbow on

My hair is full of butterflies
my teeth a feasting pink
your blessings light my spine





[ "Watermelon" (the name of a band) was
   originally published in Wisconsin Review. ]



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

sw00183p-poem13s2

Postures 2007:  #13 from Side Two



"From Brian to Brian"


So here I am
reading Frank O'Hara

intentionally
yet without intention

a two-legged creature
who thinks

and thinks he
understands

who at this moment
hunches over words

both Frank's & his
because

whatever it is
he is

or was
sets him here

drifts his thoughts
to flowers   bricks

thinking
about his thinking

what's happening
in another room

outside--
the presents passed

                 12-29-72




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

sw00182p-poem12s2

Postures 2007:  #12 from Side Two

"Friends"


It is late April
and still
          no leaves
I am thirty-one

Last night
I overheard
a man say:

   Every once in a while
   you come across
   someone
   who is real

   They have
   no color

   It makes no difference
   whether they are
   white   black   or Chinese

   They are just
   real

The girl
he was speaking to
and I
      agreed

On the jukebox
with my quarter
the voice of Don McLean
giving us
his "Vincent"
              the frustrations of days
              old and long

What I spell
for you
is piecemeal
and unrhythmic

(It is better that way)

Some I write
in my office
some
in my apartment
some
where I am now
watching a gopher
scurry past
and the small brown waves
and the chill sentences of the wind
and May 12th & its sun

watching teenagers
atop the lighthouse
spread horizontal

wondering about the driftwood
and my goosepimpled skin
and the swallow banking by
and the hunting gull

shaking the ghost of Whitman--

   Are they biting?
   yelled from a Chevy--

shaking the Bible
or Man

watching a
bronzed grackle
bathe itself
at the shore

leaving

discovering again
the windless
warmth of my car

What I spell for you
is happenstance
selected
and rhythmic

(It is better that way)

There is always
                too much death

I     am a small American
who wants to play softball

Seated now in a brown-black chair
we tried to sell
but couldn't
I listen to Janice
preparing supper

think that these verses
may be a diary
may be a letter

ask myself
What does it matter?

scratch the eczema
on my scalp
            stop

The air
settles

Once again     I am tired

"Okay!
it's time to eat!"

Later   looking at me   Janice says
   "Such pretty red slippers
   and such a pretty red shirt!"

And I think:
   Such a pretty--

Anyhow
a small boy
I don't even know
V's me
and calls
"Peace, brother"
                 I    V back
as we near each other
walking the early evening
of May 13th
            Saturday

Sitting here
naked
writing this
poem
watching the
phone
waiting for
Mark

my psyche's
divided
my psyche
encompasses all

Simply what I am
no less   no more

Homer
 Dante
              Shakespeare
    me

in a moment ofdeath
I could   slice the world
let its blood
spurt through the universe
and smile and smile

Imagination supercedes
                       the farthest star

yet is vanquished
by the merest
atomic particle

Whether I meet you
on a stairway
or meet you
by a sign
or meet you
in a California stream
                       I meet you
                       where you are

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

sw00181olp-poets

Poet Presences: Kyger / Rich


 2007 041 02 2 6

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



-
Brian A. J. Salchert                      

sw00180olp-reflection

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

"To Whomsoever Thinks It's Over, or Should Be"

       (a reflection on a Bill Knott thought)


If you think
   you should be
      gently eased into
         the congregation
            of the dead,
try venturing
   into where
      I lay
         my hermit head;
and I'm not
   about to
      leave the mix,
even though I
   am 66.
If, of course,
   God says its
      time to go,
         then go I shall.
Meanwhile,
   I say:
      Forge on.
         Yeats did.

Brian A. J. Salchert                      

sw00179p-poem11s2

Postures 2007:  #11 from Side Two



"Apples"


For weeks I have heard them drop
from the landlord's tree,
providing our neighbors children
with broken food
and missiles eyes laugh
through the alley air;

but this September night,
as my pen waits
in the ancient cricket silence,
exactly at ten
another bleached yellow
squats in the lawn,

and looking again through my den
window this eve
of Michael's Sunday, panning
from shed to bruised
branches to telephone wires
at the tree's top,

I follow the dark of its leaves,
its gouged trunk,
to incinerator ash;
and knowing the tales,
and remembering
one robin's thrust,

tell myself the children now
dream of tomorrows
when apples will not fall,
when sea / time / memory
are distances
overcome.





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

sw00178p-poem10s2

Postures 2007:  #10 from Side Two



"Alone in the Smith's Apartment"


their cats survey me
I turn away

stand my albums
on a canvass chair

watch how the black one
nuzzles them

gaze
through the windows

By the register
the white-and-grey

turns on its back
sleeps

In the leafless trees
the silence sharpens

My past shoots through me
like pieces of bone





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

sw00177p-poem9s2

Postures 2007:  #9 from Side Two



"James Tate"


Break ground,
he smiles,
break ground,

sailing his shovel
high. Don't
write of flowers;

open your self,
kaleidoscope;
let the world's

one in--
worms, wheels,
crabgrass bones,

mannequins.
It's not to China
you should go,

or the jaded sea,
but everywhere!
Look, you think

a shovel's just
for digging?  Listen,
break ground.





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

sw00176p-poem8s2

Postures 2007:  #8 from Side Two



"Imagined Words to James Tate
 at an Iowa Workshop Session"


You, Jim,
are natural,
unlike me,

stuck
as I am
stuck

in my sweet soft
knowledge of Keats
holding

me,
hiding
me.

Sing on, Jim,
even the birds
will listen.

Sing on,
even the winds
will hear.





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

sw00175p-poem7s2

Postures 2007:  #7 from Side Two



"After Reading Hamlet Once Again"


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





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

sw00174p-poem6s2

Postures 2007:  #6 from Side Two



"Tobin"

  [ Someone had said the poppies were falling
    when the news came, and so was it remembered. ]


"Here, we are what we make and what makes us",
the old man says; but Jeremy, my son,
I am not sure.  Each day we weed his rows,
slicing the quack and dandelion roots
or lifting the shallower roots of pigweed
and thistles, breaking clods; and--turning brown,
I wonder more.  I feel less near to this.
I am not concerned/ with carrots and beets,
potatoes, cabbages, cauliflower.
Each day we weed his rows.  I don't know.
The summers seem to grow in length to me;
I feel the earth has withered, become bland.
All the patient excitement disappears.
The rain, the sun, the life, the rising green
are only/ happenings now: morbid facts
to measure passings.  You see these fingers?
I used to boast of them, but something's changed:
my body aches, and it shrivels my heart.

   But what of the old man?  He is happy.

Oh yes, and I am not so old or weak.
But he is settled in his place, secure,
the way a gardened flower is, a star.
He can rest until he dies, but Tobin
remains and hoes.  I know, my son, I know
you would work, would care for your father.  Yes.
I would be happy, perhaps.  But what use?
All my life I have sweated on the land:
cleaned it, groomed it, fortified it; and now--
what good?!  A broken horse is shot; a weed
is tossed into some pile for burning.  So,
"we are what we make".  Have I done poorly?
Has all my quiet work been senseless, wrong?

   No, father.  Besides, it does not matter
   what the old man says.  We do what we can."

Yes, Jeremy, but how could I accept
(or ever be content with) a rocking chair
while life persists in these two legs, though strength
seeps out.  I'd flounder, fume, would not sit down--
unless to die.  It is a war in me.
You understand.  I could not gracefully age,
not knowing what I know.  The loneliness
would tear into me like a rifle shell.
You see the poppies, Jeremy, the poppies--





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

sw00173a-beinghuman

Thought Vignette on Being Human


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



Brian A. J. Salchert                       

sw00172a-4notes

4 Quick Notes


2007 039 02 2 4

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


 - - - - -
Brian A. J. Salchert                       

sw00171tdp-poem

This Day's Poem   tdp020707b

 20

 Miner Poet


 I am a miner poet.
 I dig for things.
 Some days
 I do not find anything.
 Other days
 I do.
 Maybe what I find
 isn't worth digging for,
 but I dig for it anyway.
 Maybe, on the other hand,
 any thing I find
 is worth digging for.
 Did you find anything today?





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

sw00170tdp-ditty

This Day's Poem   tdp020707

19

Valentine Ditty


Cupid's such a
   stupid thing:
bow and arrow
   on the wing --

hit your heart
   and make it sob
for any blot
   or any blob.


Someone needs to
   take that angel
and somewhere somehow
   rearrange all

of his quirks
   that sting us oddly
so he can't be 
   so ungodly.

 - - - - -
Brian A. J. Salchert                      

sw00169a-interview

West Bend News - "Spice of Life"


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



Brian A. J. Salchert                       

sw00168a-colors

Brian Salchert - - Uncovered                 
                                                                  the binot that was

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Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00167o-national.dl.id

National DL ID


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




Brian A. J. Salchert                       

sw00166p-poem5s2

Postures 2007:  #5 from Side Two



"Spider"


We watch her body swing from twig to spur,
metronomic silver--in the sun;

how each long sweep sets girders there for her
which from her dusky abdomen ooze, lug;

how building as if/ she would divide the air,
eleven times/ crosses the fatal hub,

& seems at moments falling, floating there.





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

sw00165p-poem4s2

Postures 2007:  #4 from Side Two



"Systems"


Here, where the heart spins
smoothly around an inner fire,
mothers winds spattered with clouds,
fathers flesh / bones / scars,
scours its surface with windings of green,
the finger shakes, the shifting begins.





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

sw00164p-poem3s2

Postures 2007:  #3 from Side Two



"Tonight"


we shall leave this place
changed

not so much as
apples change
or birds
or clouds

yet nonetheless
changed

for the words
between us
lighter than we dream
heavier than we are

the words
that move
unbrellas
arms

will
as the Indians knew
live
forever

and the motions
of my hand
your eyes
forever

If I press 
my thumbprint
into
this wood

drive
a sliver
into
your tongue

greet you
with wine
and kisses
and

turn
abashed

you
do
the same

So
this night
like a ragged child
will pass

and the black
berries
just after
the rain





[ "Tonight" was originally published
   in William Kloefkorn's magazine,
   Saltillo      Winter 1974. ]


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