sw00550a-poem19.tally2

Autobio           Tally 2

[ 2008-01-17 Note:  It is 5:30 PM and I've discovered count errors. 
                             I know it's silly of me to think it matters, but. . . . ]


 Why am I counting my poems, ditties, muttobs again?
 Most likely it's an order obsession.  It isn't to boast.
 This is count2 because at the end of April I struggled
 through a first count.     Here's an e-whip to there.
 If I do one of these every 3 or 4 months, I should be
 able to do each more quickly.
 -
 Interlude:  I've been reading translations of poems by
 Robert Bly, John Knoepfle, and James Wright from a
 book edited and with a new preface by Robert Bly.
 Neruda & Vallejo: Selected Poems is its title.  In it
 is also an interview of Neruda by Robert Bly which
 occurred on June 12, 1966, in New York: "The Lamb
 and the Pinecone" wherein Neruda recounts a mystical
 event in his life.  
  The book was published by Beacon Press  ·  Boston
 in 1993.  Spanish texts are on the even-numbered pages
 and the English translations on the odd-numbered pages.
  One of the sonnets in my 1976: in 2006 is to
 Vallejo.  Two days ago, due to my reading the English
 translations of poems by these poets, four lines (not
 from that sonnet) entered my consciousness:

     Death is the only truth worth living.
     This moment, this moment, this moment, this.
     And so I shall: scatterings of words, of seeds, of clouds.
     I am the wind, the chameleon wind.

 -
 June 2007 is my latest book of poems and most
 of my poems posted in this journal since April are 
 in that book (85).  See the June 2007 archive.

 -
 Now I'll need to do some preparatory work.  Will return 
 when I've finished it.  It is AM 11:11.  It was.
 -

 Other archive places to go to are:

    for "Incantation" - May 10 of 2007 at sw00385jt
    -
    for "String of Days" (21 poems) - May 13 of 2007 at sw00388sc       
    -
    for Prayers in December (33) - May 14 of 2007 at sw00393pindc        
    -
    for The Undulant Trees entries 9-14 - March 16 of 2007 at sw00266utc
          (there are 14 poems in these 6 entries)
    -
    for Venturings entries 13-15 - March14 of 2007 at sw00261vc
    -
    for Autobio (59, 64, 65) and the 4 lines above - April 15 of 2007 at sw00316ac
    -

   164 (see note above)  New count: 85+1 + 21 + 33 + 14 + 3 + 4 = 161 
~
total to date: not 771, but 768  (fool proof)


 
 Don't let prejudices you may have prevent you from reading this.
 ------------------------------------

Brian A. J. Salchert                   

sw00549a-poem18

Autobio                 aaahm



  Poor Baby or (Good Thing!)


 I live in
 a universe of one
 from which I make forays
 into other universes,
 perturbing them;
 but few seem
 particularly
 interested,
 and do not make forays
 from theirs into mine,
 so far as
 I can tell
 anyway.




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

sw00548a-poem17

Autobio



  Recess


 Seems                                                      
        the rain                                        
                    has stopped;
 the thunderstorm
                            moved on.

 Let me go see.

 No,
      it's still raining,
                        quietly.
 Three mourning doves
 are sitting on a wire,
 and swallows
                    are wisking about
 as if they didn't
                    give a shit,
 but they do.

 So,
     better watch out,
     better not cry,
     better not pout;
                            'n' this is why:
 a swallow's gonna
                           shit in
                                  your eye.




 ---------------------------------
    Brian A. J. Salchert (sort of)

sw00529a-poem16

Autobio       6 Lines



 The 6 lines beneath this note have no title
 other than the possibililty of letting them be
 entitled "While Reading a Review" as it was
 then they came to me.  The review was of
 an anthology of British poets.  It may have
 been written by Andrew Duncan, but I am
 not sure of that.  The online page it is on is
 identified as ae162, the "ae" meaning Angel
 Exhaust magazine.  I placed three comments
 from it in the notebook I am presently using.
 The last is:

   "The idea that language does anything
   on its own is poorly founded; the pro-
   ject of investigating language without 
   investigating people and their behaviour
   towards each other is short-term and
   self-defeating."


 ~

       I am a nothing
       who never was,
       and never will be.

       If you want
       to see what death is,
       visit me.

 ~


 1940 Day Lewis-Strong anthology review

 Search   tlrho0006   at Google Blog Search 
 to read my "Prayer on Independence Day".


Brian A. J. Salchert                       

sw00335a-poems14and15

 Autobio



 In 1982--under my Alden St. Cloud pen name--two poems
 from a failed set of poems were published through Midwestern
 Writers' Publishing House in Wisconsin Poets' Calendar:
 1982, edited by Tom & Mary Montag.  I am placing
 them in this entry.

 * 14




                                "February"


                                Well   I'm back
                                the short one

                                the one Sadie Hawkins
                                lengthens a day

                                every four years
                                but not this

                                Did you toss out
                                January   or hide it

                                It's amazing how much
                                we lose   retain

                                how much forgotten
                                suddenly returns

                                brightening   shadowing
                                calming   maddening

                                how a loaf of bread
                                a snowman move

                                as my being short
                                balanced

                                yet blessed
                                with something human




 * 15




                                "September"


                                Nothing stays
                                not even a hurricane's

                                madness
                                maddening us

                                Even this universe
                                billions of years hence

                                may collapse into a
                                black hole unimaginable

                                For now   though
                                here in Wisconsin

                                the rains
                                wrinkling on the windows

                                encourage dreams
                                & memories

                                it seems will
                                stay




 *

Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00333a-poem13apr07

Autobio



           "Each and Every"


           it isn't what one of us is doing
           it is what we are all doing

           and the end hangs like a
           broken star waiting for us




-
Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00331a-poem12apr07

 Autobio



                 "Malaise"


                 There is a deadness
                 round about
                 I know not how to
                 ferret out

                 that I might nab it
                 by its nape
                 and stick it where it
                 shan't escape.


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




Brian A. J. Salchert                 

sw00330a-poem11

 Autobio
 -


 What will be shown is a something I found in one of my 
 Ledge Walks gatherings, a stash of old poems.  It might
 be a Mutt Object.  It was written in red ink on a white 
 napkin on 12-1-71, and under that date is Brian Salchert.



                    To This Napkin

                    1.
                    I am not using you
                    as you   were meant
                                   to be used,
                    porous rough rectangle;
                    my  s t a i n s   are   orderly
                                   and     red.
                    Your whiteness
                                   sharpens them.

                    2.
                    Beyond the above fold,
                          this--
                    more territory to mark;
                          so,
                    harvesting, as the time is
                          right,
                    each moment that I come to
                          now,
                    caring only to follow
                          here
                    the sound, sense, space of
                          you.





-
Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00313a-poem10apr07

Autobio



"Weird"


The Centaurs
waxed and waned
in the pools of heat

Miss Quito buzzed
for a whole year
in and out of Ecuador

You couldn't catch
a fly with a button
if you ate 'hoppers

We sat about
five feet from each other
so we could breathe

A myriad galaxies
bounced
out of time





-
Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00306a-poem09apr07

Autobio



 "To Those I Am One With"


 I am a thing
 of wish and wing
       very few know,
       and fewer care to;

 yet I am here
 in trees and seas
       very few know,
       and fewer care to.

 It does not matter
 what I say, or which way,
       very few know,
       and fewer care to.

 And so I abide
 in a light of night
       very few know,
       and fewer care to;

 and ever I shall: still,
 from house and hill,
       where very few know,
       and fewer care to.




 -------

Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00304a-easter.sunday

Autobio


 Last night I went to bed early because I normally get up early
 on Sunday/ to take my osteoporosis medicine.  My going to
 bed early means I settled in after 11 PM instead of an hour
 later.  Oddly, I awoke at about 2:30 AM, and at that time I
 felt nothing physically or psychically I could point to as being
 the cause.  Even so, I went to my bathroom.  After returning
 to my bed, I was not able to return to sleeping.  Verses were/
 entering my brain, and they had a certain sense and sound 
 structure.  As I was doubtful I would remember them, I got
 back out of bed, walked over to where my goose-neck desk
 lamp sits, and turned it on.  I then picked up the notepad 
 I've  been using, and also one of my pens; and sat down on 
 my blanket-covered stool.  Eventually, after some revisions, 
 I had scribbled out a twenty-line piece divided into 5 stanzas.
 I then returned to my bed, but did not fall back to sleep.  I
 think it was about 4:20 AM when I at last did.  I awoke at
 7:51, too late for taking my medicine, besides which I did
 not feel well in those places where it mattered.  Hopefully,
 I will not feel so tomorrow morning, as I determined it
 would be wiser to take that medicine then.  Similar to the
 poems I placed in my Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and
 Holy Saturday entries, the one I am about to place in this
 Easter Sunday entry/ is apocryphal; but this one, on its
 surface, seems less obviously so.  Therefore, I suggest you
 read Chapter 24--the final chapter--of St. Luke's Gospel.
 -
 -
 "Arisen from His Tomb,"


 somewhere abroad
 in the light of day
 Jesus walks,
 numinous;

 for He knows a place
 He wants to be/ to
 quietly converse with
 two of us;

 but why should He choose
 to so appear;
 and if yet to others:
 whom of us?

 Do we not sense
 where there might crowd
 in fearful secret a
 room of us?

 Let us then go
 to tell those of this
 before we proceed to
 Ephesus.
 -
 -



 I suspect the above is a kind of code to me which I must further
 decipher.  Like Francis Thompson, I see "The Hound of Heaven"
 in it.  Pentecost Sunday in 1962, the day I left the then Wisconsin
 Province Jesuit Novitiate in St. Bonifacius, Minnesota, was in my
 life a seminal day.  In many ways I have since failed to attend to
 the calling inherent in the events of that day.  I am, however, not
 without hope, nor without faith, nor without love, though I may be
 sadly without.



-
Brian A. J. Salchert                      

sw00303a-holy.saturday

Autobio


 OT = Old Testament                 NT = New Testament

 -

 Today is Holy Saturday, or Absent Day, or Tomb Day,
 or Mourning Day, which together oddly, yet perhaps
 appropriately, acronym to ATM, which in turn makes 
 me think: atonement.  An old poem of mine--I do not
 recall when I first penned it--reveals an OT/NT God I
 speak of as "Rune".  Its style is neo-Romantic.  Given
 the temper of these times on planet Earth, I feel today
 is a good day for it to reappear.  I was a church-going
 Roman Catholic then, but now, as I say in my recently
 revised "January: Year-day 2" sonnet :
          I am a roamin' Cath'lic.
 -
 Depending upon circumstances, this status may change.
 -
 -

 "Words from the Rune"


 I have it yet upon the stinking marigold,
     The glory of an angered eye;
 And where the flesh-path brushes past a naked thorn,
     The straightened will of Zion cold;
 And in my spear-infested waters
   Which tear at trunks of towered sky,
     The power of a thousand slaughters,
     The pleasure of eternal scorn.

 I send this still among man's dying villages,
     The chalice filled with living Blood;
 And through his fields of darkened wheat,
     The Bread that harries pillages;
 And under concrete mountains formed with rods
   Where shadows stab each other in the flood,
     The words which massacre his brazen gods;
     The collared-man to wash his feet.

 I take them yet out from the human slime,
     Those worthy figs I had no need to curse;
 And, oh, those star-surpassing objects devils burn,
     Holied tools to cross the spread of time;
 And all above their dry and chaffy earth
   Which are the hopes both good and bad disperse,
     I crush on streets the thistle's mirth;
     I build a chapel for the fern.

 ---------
     [ "Words from the Rune" first appeared in
       First Pick, a rare out-of-print book,
       Copyright 1982 by Alden St. Cloud
       Thinking Lizard     Austin, Texas 78741 ]

-
Brian A. J. Salchert                      

sw00302a-redemption.friday

Autobio


 Today is Good Friday.  Today I heard a crow's caws;
 or: today is a crow's cause day.  For myself, I expect
 today will be a reflection day and a day of two meals
 of pink salmon.

 ~

 It is quite chilly here this morning in Springfield, MO,
 and it is forecasted to be freezing chilly during the
 night tonight, tomorrow night, the next night, and
 Monday night: down to 18 Sunday night.  We are
 under a high.  I'm tempted to call it Sprintedon
 Winter with the hope that once it has sprinted on
 it will not return.  Yet, cold as it is, I must say:
 Thank you, high, for your sunny dry eye, though it
 has not come by/ yet.  Today, so far, is a blustery
 overcast day, but not a dark overcast day.  It is
 more like the color of this page, a color I have 
 had to settle on due to my need to use white as
 a text color in a few special places.

 ~

 In 1982, while Janice and I were temporarily
 in Austin, TX, I published an Alden St. Cloud
 (my major pen name which I no longer use)
 selection of my poems.  In that rare book's
 "Other" section is a poem which is actually a
 Holy Saturday poem but because of the title
 I chose for it/ I am placing it in this entry.  
 In that same section is a much older religion-
 oriented poem I plan to post in tomorrow's
 autobio entry.  The angle of vision in each 
 of the poems is unusual.
 -
 -
 "Good Friday Evening, 1979"


 Today is Friday the 13th
 and the moon is full
 and the Son of Man is

 dead, alive
 in the shades of Hell;
 from the tombs of those

 dead He selects
 those long-patient
 who shall rise from those

 dead as He--
 opening the gates
 of the promised but

 dead those years
 until His sojourn
 on Earth and His

 becoming dead--rises
 into the New Garden
 clothed with Light.

      -------

       [ from page 77 of First Pick,
         a rare out-of-print book,
         Copyright 1982 by Alden St. Cloud
         Thinking Lizard        Austin, Texas ]

                                Redemption Friday


-
Brian A. J. Salchert                      

sw00301a-holy.thursday

Autobio


 Did  a Holy Thursday search at Google, and chose to visit
 the first site on the list.  According to what is said there, 
 my personal calendar should not be constructed as it is; but 
 I want Sunday to be day 7/ in part because for centuries the
 day we call Sunday has been held by many to be the day 
 of rest.  For me this does not prevent "Sunday" (my day 7)
 from being a day of renewal.  I wrote a short 3-part poem
 on Easter Sunday in 2000 (?) entitled: "From Brian in the 
 Empty Tomb", a poem I plan to place here once I locate it.
 Nothing in that poem relates to my current view because it
 pre-dates my current view.  Besides, my personal calendar
 is more an imaginary construct than it is a dogmatic one.
 -
 About the poem:  According to what I moments ago found,
 it was April 23, 2000, and its original title was Three Upon
 Easter.



        From Brian in the Empty Tomb


       "Where Goeth He?"

       Who walked on water;
       Who said that on the third day;
       Who grants and ungrants wisdom.

       I had a picture of Him once;
       Nay, I felt His fingers on my shoulder;
       But now He seems less than a shimmer.

       I want to scurry from those wrappings
       So neatly in that corner placed.
       I want to kneel there; I . . ; I . . .

       Oh, Jesus, Master, You always were
       The Slippery One: disappearing
       Mid-wink, in the mist of a word.


       ~ ~ ~


       "When Will I See Him?"

       Once again:
       What path;
       What room.

       I cannot
       Stay here.
       Who knows

       Who else
       Might enter.
       Funny so!

       Here I
       Inside 
       a tomb

       (Albeit
       Where He
       Had lain),

       Find it
       Is not--.
       Away!  Away!


       ~ ~ ~


       "Where Shall I Search?"

       For Him, my solace
       In the churning storm,
       My sweet Essene.

       Search?  They who
       Pressed the--, who
       Drove the--.  Run!

       Behind locked doors
       Entomb thyself.
       There shake/ and wait.




-
Brian A. J. Salchert                      

sw00298a-poem04apr07

Autobio



 About a Certain Bird


 Mr. Robin tries his best,
 but all he can do
 is feather his breast
 with a dull smokey orange hue;

 but when it comes to his singing
 he cares not whether you are willing:
 before 5 AM he's about with his
     cheerrip cheerrip, cheerrip cheerrip,
     cheerrip cheerrip, cheerrip cheerrip,
     cheerrip cheerrip, cheerrip cheerrip,
     cheerrip cheerrip, cheerrip cheerrip,
     cheerrip cheerrip, cheerrip cheerrip
 high-tone trilling.






     [ Note:
       -
       Put a male cardinal next to a male robin
       and you will see immediately
       what is red and what isn't. ]



-
for copyright information see homepage     Brian A. J. Salchert                      

sw00297a-poem03apr07

Autobio



           Hermit Habit


           Somewhere  there
           is a star
           deeply alone

           a star spun off
           a wanderer
           a white dwarf

           no galaxy
           no nebula
           compasses it

           a thought apart
           its distance is
           its defense

           and yet it shines
           however weakly
           because it must





-
Brian A. J. Salchert                     
 

sw00296a-greeting

                                     

Sprintedon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

       H e l l o

 

 

 

    S  U  N  D  A  Y

 /   /    /   /  /   /   /

 

                            

 

 

 

                                Brian A. J. Salchert

                                          |

 

                                                                                 Migrasaurus

 

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


-