Have been finding more old poems of mine. Am going to begin a new book: Scatterings. Will be using an "s" after the sw##### for it. If my verses do not interest you, let the "s" stand for skip. Since it's already up and has no home, "The Rueful Soldier" will be the first one, and then the others from the chapbook it's in which are not yet up. Limiting this book to old works, however, is not likely. Since it will have a link in it, the first Scatterings entry will be: sw00958sc-links.entry21. Yesterday I changed the title of my sonnet opus to 1976 Today because I put back one of the deleted poems and expect to be putting all back. There are 13 left. I've placed them in an offline folder along with the original versions of the 2 which have been returned. - Brian A. J. Salchert 2008-08-03
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Sunday, August 3, 2008
sw00957d57--books-note
Friday, January 4, 2008
sw00766a-one.scifi1976sonnet
[ Note 1: Below is a sonnet I wrote in 1976. I am one-quarter British, and I now think it best/ to read it deliberately with an upper-crust British accent in a heavily-whispered supercilious tone. ] [ Note 2: Why? Andromeda is a galaxy which is in time/ expected to devour our Milky Way galaxy, and "Starships to Andromeda" depicts Earthlings as an evil Borg-like super-race. As such, its final two lines are its most difficult; and, if enunciated properly, its most acrid. ] [ Note 3: I copied and pasted it from sw00036usabys, which is from my 1976: in 2006; and can be found in the archives in November of 2006. ] [ Note 4: On this Saturday, August 2, 2008, I changed the title of my sonnet opus to 1976 Today. ] March: Year-day 74 Starships to Andromeda. Warps of time. Wherever there is emptiness, we fill and fill. Even black holes will learn the chill of our intrusions. Creatures/ so sublime, we suck a planet dead with such deft tongues, swarming through its airs, it's hardly awake by the hour we've swallowed enough to slake the top of our thirst, collapsing its lungs. "Bless us" we ask an eternalized God to bolster our mad insecurity, the fuel of our power, the reason no sensible reason is needed to prod our devastations of this deep orbed sea, this Eden of the fish of fiery snow. - Brian A. J. Salchert
Friday, August 31, 2007
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= August: Year-day 229 Mr. and Mrs. Goldfinch dine on a thistle, a Canadian Bull, just west of our apartment, now and then notes of their whistles lightly passing in to chase out the dour. Janice and I chuckle watching them, him in particular, as they flick down, poking for seeds, and the whisked down graphs a wind's whim and the seeds crack as if/ on fire & smoking. Olive-green yellow, charcoal black and white, Mrs. appropriately harder to see; Mr. (for courting) white, black, yellow bright, roller-coastering in neat reverie. Some things are especially to delight: Mr. and Mrs. Goldfinch and, sometimes, we. (1976 and 2007-08-31) ------------------------------------ about American Goldfinch Brian A. J. Salchert
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= September: Year-day 250 If what I write strengthens your spirit, peaches! Each of us leans on his inner resources. So if what I write/ by enchantments reaches and fortifies your life against remorses conspiriing to end it, sunlight and breezes you let down your hair or take off your shirt to enjoy. Pain dissolved by touch that pleases, sound and sense right, is anyone's desert. Sure, we would all like to be more aware, not miss the need in the tone of a word or a laugh or the movement of/ a finger, walk with a friend through cresting white warm air saving each other's life; but truth's deferred often from us/ though we thoughtfully linger. (4-11-77; but the virgules and italics were added in September of 2003) ------------------------------------ Wyoming Uplift Organization Brian A. J. Salchert
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= October: Year-day 289 Mysteries of the mind: Entire designs, nuances, descriptions are sometimes dropped unconsciously when a work's set out, stopped for a while, its time, colors and flexed lines considered complete: defined and defined. "A poem is really a kind of machine for producing the poetic state of mind by means of words," Valéry has said. Keen. The mind is a desert challenging rain. Joint by joint the syllables race and brake, turn upon each other, hum in the brain; yet I'm often a shelf for its own sake. Put on me what you will. Empty, unfinished, I'm nonetheless here: rough, but undiminished. (septet: April, 1978) ------------------------------------ on Valéry Brian A. J. Salchert
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= October: Year-day 285 "To John Keats" Brave spellstar, child of magic beauty, arc Eternal of triumphant truth, soft-send Those lyrical effusions we attend-- Owls who pursue the melacholic lark. Wand our sweat into dew. With suns embark, Renewed Olympian; from night unbend Men's hearts. You are th' explorer of his end; The shepherd's flute that stedfast casements mark. Far wing souls' satellites, commuters bright; But yours among the farthest glows, like Ruth, Desiring only that it loves. Unstilled, Majestic; more than mortal, you are light, O ageless youth with aged wisdom filled: In all things Beauty is; in all is Truth. (1962) ------------------------------------ on Keats Brian A. J. Salchert
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= October: Year-day 284 "Sonnet to Shakespeare" O master of the keys, of treasures, lord, A billion crowns in praise upon your head. No, more, since tombs cannot in secrets board Your play, let Hamlets ever hear the dead. Did I say dead? But bones alone must be. What Prospero could die, though buried deep His rod? Yet tempests must on rocks roll sea To wash the world and round it wtih a sleep. O golden globe from whence our day takes life, Spill warmth, throw light for us; unlock your heart Forever, so those jewels will soothe this strife Man bears because his body lacks in art. Sing, bard on Avon born, no songs of death, But pour your poems pure with each man's breath. (12/14/62: on a flyleaf of an "ancient" Hurst & Co. book entitled Shakespeare) ------------------------------------ on Shakespeare Brian A. J. Salchert
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= October: Year-day 281 Homer has/ stormed through all. And so they say: "Pull down your tents. Forget it. Douse your fires. Why should we fight with shadows? Why should we stay, trembling in snow, because we have desires? Pack up your knapsacks, friends; it is no use. Why should we cringe from snakes, battle with flies, or wonder all night if a peg is loose? Why should we starve: to be syllable-wise?" Dante and Shakespeare--they felt that storm too. And did they run from the terrors? Did they swerve? Let us keep our fires; keep our tent ropes new. Words, life, love: if it seems foolish to serve to some, let them pull down their tents; go then. He's thundered round our heads, too, and will again. (circa 1965) ------------------------------------ on Homer Brian A. J. Salchert
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= December: Year-day 363 Read, read out loud, for the sense and the sound: a canyon's long magnificence, the scourgings ot its ancient river, the blare sun/ ground deeply into an earth shocked by its urgings these mean dry weeks; the men alive, then dead. Exploration is but the edge of growth, prime as it is, affirming that you've sped "what-am-I-missing" past, cursing the loath. Read, read out loud, for the mind and the heart and the ways they entwine, light against shade, water with soil, disease measuring health. Happily, it matters less where you start than/ how you move/ to learn where/ the words made/ must bear the ringing/ designs of their wealth. (12-28-76 / 3-26-77 / 12-30-06 / 8-31-07) ------------------------------------ advice from Billy Collins on audibly reading a poem Brian A. J. Salchert
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= December: Year-day 361 Faith: Believing that what is beyond one is also above one; that one, however, is of that; that one's inward eyes are ever smiling with pleased awe at the touch of sun one moves in and is; that no life is done, ever, no work; even the stillborn, clever, odd, the suicides, live on, cannot sever themselves from the whole, the glittering run. O plant a tree in memory of me, make of my body a sparse ring of ashes to benefit the ground around that tree; make of my bones and flesh a memory in the grassy earth where the chipmunk dashes, in the trunk, limbs, branches, twigs, slick green slashes! ------------------------------------ belief systems Brian A. J. Salchert
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= November: Year-day 327 Slowly in his hand the tulip glass swirls the Chateauneuf du Pape, and the wild girls wrestle in the garden and will not stop while the fire in the hearth shrinks into pearls. As fast as he can he spins the blue top and opens his ears to its whirring furls while the peasants dance and harvest each crop his dreams invent in their easy chair shop. Oh if a man could stand and sing and be unto himself a universe, the sea of others he'd need not touch nor once curse nor slantly vow to for better or worse, but simply be terse and enter a tree and drop all his money out of his purse. (11-23-76) ------------------------------------ opinion story found in Huh search Brian A. J. Salchert
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= November: Year-day 308 & what the hell's a good poem anyhow: one whose lightning ruptures its learner's heart, that thunders its curves of emotive thought the range of human hearing; veils its scars? Must dogma be shunned, & bleeding reproved; unique technique & flair given/ the green each age? Few besides those gardeners/ approve leaf & blossom from their diligent seeds? How fashion rules/ & the kings of the past, sanctified, condemned! What it takes to last? I've had it! It just doesn't matter now. I know what I've done/ and expect to do. If you enter my words, you'll measure how/ I am, was, stay, bounteous with/ me / you. ------------------------------------ a contemporary view of the poetry galaxy - (Attend the copyright information.) Brian A. J. Salchert
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= October: Year-day 298 César Vallejo, you are so much! Aye: dios mio. . . . No turn I could make could-- Why do I want to compete with you? My! My, my! What cancers of termites breathe wood! Unknowable stars whirl in/ my frail bones. A music grazes beneath the crisp snow. Tears well/ at the push of your tones. I cannot compete/ with nowhere to go. César Vallejo, Vallejo . . . held soul, too exquisite for a worn Earth, adieu. A saraband laces; the pampas roll; not even the rains can compete with you. Dark, small, fresh blood, fresh life, my one heart's goal. You will plumb and plumb to make our lives true. (2-5-77) ------------------------------------ translating Vallejo interview Brian A. J. Salchert
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= October: Year-day 294 So much has been written, and will be still as tumbleweeds knock at gas station doors, and flat earth quietly puffs to a hill; and macho men, gentled, play on all fours. So much: touting the old; arriving proud, part of the crest of the current; or-- the horse and the crocodile haven't allowed the dalliance of wonder. Write so much more. "Calm is the sea; the waves work less and less." A certain madness rages in the bone. I write because to be, to curse, to bless men's dreams/ such making/ shows faith best. Alone, I'll neither hope nor love; and just to guess--. Encompass us who sail/ the not yet known. (1978, 1979, & 2006; quote: Surrey) ------------------------------------ Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-1547) Brian A. J. Salchert
Thursday, August 30, 2007
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= October: Year-day 292 The Collected Poems of Brian the Split. Why not. Earth has worse fancies to endure. Besides, who's to say anyone for sure is no more than one on the face of it. Rejected as one, rejected as three, the latter at least allows for more laughs as I rhyme and rhythm to nourish me who would blossom in you, unite our graphs. There'll soon be a day when the snow's so dry it grows from my car like a fine white mold, and the swilled airs swallow my human cry at the wonder of it. And I too, cold, flipped Alden St. Cloud, doubting who, where, why. Keys beyond flesh open anything old. (February, 1977) ------------------------------------ sonnets about sonnets Brian A. J. Salchert
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= October: Year-day 286 "What does it matter, friend, how much we dream? A poet's eyes are neither bulbs nor moons. They do not grow, or shine, more than could seem; or pull the green and dying from lagoons. And though his ears may hear, his fingers feel, his tongue may taste, his nose may smell--ist gut-- they do not guide, or teach, or make things real; his heart, if anything, is bitterroot. And what does it matter if he stays at home to nurse a brother lost to blood and phlegm; a poet dies in every worthy poem: and travel with not lessen a one of them." "No, Rome cannot change beauty. You are right. Give Tom my best; and John: thank you. Good night." (circa 1965) ------------------------------------ Keats' Negative Capability Brian A. J. Salchert
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= October: Year-day 275 October, month of changes, touch, change me who so reluctantly displays his fire/ fearing he isn't full enough to be worth seeing, fearing his truths won't inspire, fearing what can be harvested from him it would be better to let rot; to hope next year his form and substance seem less grim to his brown eyes than now / more charged as trope; that imagined rejections he expects will come/ not come, or if they do, not leave him shrinking into hardened ground as though he harbored some disease/ one who inspects would hastily confirm; so ought to grieve, waiting for the saw's screech, the masking snow. (5-29/30-80) . 25+ ?! . (2006: 1-23 & 12-24) ------------------------------------ several bible passages that counter feelings of worthlessness Brian A. J. Salchert
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= September: Year-day 267 Attended a picnic once--it was sunny, breezy, and warm--just nice. We talked and played. The robins crossed and crossed, crossed again, stayed. When it was time to eat, the winds whipped; gunny clouds/ fired pellets of ice at us, barrage after barrage. We crowded under the roof of the open-air pavilion, aloof as stone, grasping our plates and cups. Such gods! Traps we build ourselves, traps built for us, traps our genes and circumstances put us in: stupidity, patience, nerviness, luck, people out to get us; and we, perhaps, out to/ get ourselves. Bells, who knows how thin the air is, a spoken word, one night's tuck! ------------------------------------ FEMA for Kids Brian A. J. Salchert
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= September: Year-day 260 Your shining rings of love move, befuddle me, Saturn, rainbow, chopped tree, swirling oil, pond, and the constant curve of the weeping sea, and the dark faith of the graceful spored frond. Though it painfully matters you're enjoyed where you glisten, chime, & commit your love, enjoyment of you continues devoid of all it should be where reason can't move. Mysteries that make us/ wonder & kneel, rats in our cities of doubful content, shadows of shadows of passing appeal, what holy delvings your circlings have sent!: beginnings & endings underdefined to boggle the limits of my trussed mind. ------------------------------------ planetary rings rainbows + tree rings Brian A. J. Salchert
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= September: Year-day 246 Popcorn and swizzle sticks. Who can I trust? Not myself, certainly, a proven fool, having walked the wrong halls in the wrong schools and darkened my days in these times of dust. Do this! Do that! Hurry! I must! I must! The typewriter ribbon slides from its spool. I'm seldom at ease with the simplest tools. If I don't quit talking, my fork will rust. I know it's a pity bears haven't found where I hide my honey-filled dead tree head even the bees are preparing to leave. When I'm empty, dry, and the only sound I make in the wind is an orange-red spouting smoke, crackling to ash, none will grieve. (9-2-76 / 9-24-76 / 12-23-06) ------------------------------------ self-pity Brian A. J. Salchert