sw00366jtc-fantasy.epic

Justan Tamarind: Book I   links entry for jt                     

 This morning I found again this 1965/66 failed fantasy epic.
 I've decided to present it on 20 entries.  Therefore, each of
 the remaining 19 entries will contain five stanzas.  As I post
 it, I will try to avoid making revisions because (for historical
 reasons) I want its faults to be evident.  Yet, though before
 me I have the text of it I showed to my mentor--comments
 from him ("urp!" being part of one) persist in its margins, I'd
 already revised it some since.  Still, whatever further ones I
 make will not obliterate the essence of what I first penned. 
 -
 06MAY07  Late last night I read further into J T and then
                 skipped to its end.  There I discovered Alden
 St. Cloud, who had written a Proem to Book I, had also
 written a Postem to that book: a stanza which/ concludes 
 Book I so well it closes the poem, making thoughts of there
 ever being a Book II (to say nothing of a III, IV, or even a
 V) a fantasy of a fantasy.  Consequently, I now feel J T is
 best read as something one is overhearing rather than as
 something being spoken to one.                              BAJS
 -
 One last tidbit, not that it is tasty:  early in 1966 my 25th
 birth date occurred.

 *

   entry 1
   -
   entry 2
   -
   entry 3
   -
   entry 4
   -
   entry 5
   -
   entry 6
   -
   entry 7
   -
   entry 8
   -
   entry 9
   -
   entry 10
   -
   entry 11
   -
   entry 12
   -
   entry 13
   -
   entry 14
   -
   entry 15
   -
   entry 16
   -
   entry 17
   -
   entry 18
   -
   entry 19
   -
   entry 20 (which includes my phonetic poem: "Incantation")
   -




Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00365olp-review

Other Literary Persons
 -


 [ Two entries before this one/ I wrote of finding
   two somethings this Friday I did not expect to
   find.  I shared the first of those there.  Here I'll
   be sharing the second.  Mysteries do enfold
   my life; and due to my beliefs, these mysteries
   are not random events. ]



 In an old manila folder I had labeled Literary Info I found 
 a Volume 7, Number 8 September-October 1985 copy of
 American Book Review.  I see it had been mailed to me.
 I do not know why I kept it, and I have not tried to discern 
 why.  I had, however, left it open so that pages 10 and 11
 were visible.  These are pages centered on Robert Duncan
 and on his having won the 1985 National Poetry Award.
 Duncan's book of the moment was Ground Work: Before
 the War, and then I noted that beginning on page 10 was 
 a review of that book by Ron Silliman.  I placed that ABR 
 on my bed, stood beside my bed, and read Mr. Silliman's
 review.  As I read, it became evident/ what I was learning
 about Robert Duncan and Ron Silliman (who at that time
 was not, as they say, on my radar) was less important 
 than what I was learning about myself.
 -
 Yesterday, or the day before, I had a similar experience
 when I read online an article about a poet I was slightly
 aware of, but never enough interested in to become more
 aware of: William Bronk; and I would not have on that day 
 sought to know more had I not first been interested in
 learning more about Marjorie Perloff, and had come upon
 and read/ an online interview of her by a writer who had 
 written three books about William Bronk.
 -
 My life is a plethora of mysteries I am certain--however
 poorly I am able to appreciate them--are not random.
 -
 Once I find it, I intend to link this entry to a rather strange
 something I wrote a few years back/ while I was briefly
 online at a business-oriented site.  It is a something which/
 occurs in a cave. 



Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00364ut-10.3poems

The Undulant Trees



The Poet and the Words


There was a saint
who when he went out
walking through the fields
was wont to tap,
as if a tiny zepher had,
an open flower here & there
with the earth-stained
end of his cane,
and wink at them,
and at the sky
they motioned toward.




§




A Little Something


That's what it is,
waiting:

even when standing
nearly straight up;

even the body
it dangles from,
modifying;

its spirit too,
weakly smiling.

Even the mirror
seems small;

not the longing, though,
cloudy giant;

not the aurora,
solemn hope,
glimmering, resplendent!

A little something?
Everyone is.




§




Armageddon


Beauty is in the sty of the boulder,
and the oak has it reasons
the blue sky knows not of.


     *


Here and there where a pecan's branches
play each other for the summer's sun,
cobweb tents trap their leaves.

As autumn begins,
gangs of variegated brown moths
pester me on my night walks to work.


     *


On William Blake's birth date
this 1983 year of our impertinence,
the first wintering herring gull I'd this season seen
sketched a circling inspection flight.

I wanted to bash that ominous head;
yet wanted to become/ that body, that grace.




-
Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00363v-13.poem11

Venturings


 [ Today has been a signal day: a day of mysteries.
   A goodly portion of this now 4:30 pm Friday, I
   spent searching for something I have yet to find;
   however, in the midst of that search I have found
   two somethings I did not expect to find.  The
   latter of those I am sharing here: it is my old . . . ]





 Sprintedon


 spurious, sequacious
 airy bones,
 dik-dik of dinosaurs,
 ginkgos shimmer where you bound,
 springy mosses emulate,
 ferns bower.
 Should we wonder,
 unwilling to accept a saurian so delicate,
 your green green-bean-seed eggs deceived us
 for 230 years?

    Is the dance of the mayfly
    a sort of laughter in this regard?

 Perhaps it was you
 Alden St. Cloud
 caricatured in his logo
 after we humans became for him thinking lizards.
 Certainly, if anyone
 was likely to believe in your existence,
 Alden was.
 I never did ask him though,
 though he did request
 Boston ferns
 and several bowls of yellow fruit
 the week he died.

    This afternoon:
    20 or so minutes ago,
    my eyes bleary,
    I swayed them through our den's bay window
    to the deep yard's edge;
    when the hot airs there
    riffled the flat-topped barberry,
    ghostly quaverings
    flickered in them,
    & winks
    of Jurassic suns:
                            sprintedons!




-
Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00362math-not.sent.note

Math           Because of Fermat

 -



 5-3-07
 - - - -
 I know a certain A. W. is credited with having proved
 Fermat's Last Theorem, but I--an amateur heuristic 
 mathematician--was convinced back in the mid 1960's
 that his Theorem could be proved geometrically; and
 while I was not aware of David Bernoulli's formulas
 then (formulas I heuristically rediscovered in the mid
 1990's), formulas which bolstered my thirty-years-
 before certainty/ in that each level can be seen as a
 dimension, and that once one gets to the 3rd (cubes)
 dimension/ the forced separation between numbers
 is such that no x² + y² = z² can be found therein
 (although w³ + x³ + y³ = z³ conditions can therein be
 found) intimates that each dimension inherently persists
 via rules which pertain solely to its geometry, that what
 is true in one dimension cannot be true in any other 
 dimension.
 -
 Also, regarding Fermat, I have encountered 2 intriguing
 instances in this century, the first of which was/ a pattern-
 recognition proof of Fermat's Last Theorem put forth by
 a mathematical thinker whose name I do not recall; and
 the second of which had to do with finding prime numbers
 (and thus also non-prime numbers) through the use of
 Pascal's Triangle/ from a mathematical thinker whose name
 I could not discover.
 -
 In my present j.a.c./tl/bajs/ Sprintedon Hollow journal
 I have natural-number-summation-sequence thoughts
 which may be of interest.           Brian A. J. Salchert


#

sw00361a-hermit.stance

Autobio



 Hermit Stance


 Why am I persisting in placing my past and passing thoughts online
 only, especially since few are aware of my presence here &/ most
 of those few stay away?  The main reason is--in spite of whatever--
 I, in general, do honestly feel more comfortable here.  I do not like
 having to slant my thoughts and the manner in which I present them
 toward the biases of some editor.  Also, in most cases, I find the
 submission guidelines too restrictive.  I am not oblivious to the lone-
 liness of being online, or/ of the difficulties of so being, or/ of the
 uncertainties.  However, the immediacy it affords is an attraction
 hard to resist.  I did manage to stop playing online games a few
 years back after Lycos sent me this message:  "Thank you for 
 letting us waste your time."  Even so, I know I may still be wasting
 my time, but that is a risk I am willing to take.  Definitely, revising--
 a nearly constant activity for me--is magically easy in cyberspace.
 Further, it is easier to be (even for this non-techie) creative in new
 ways in cyberspace.  For instance, I have a ribbon-like poem in
 this journal.  It covers a span of six days, and each day's word
 ribbon has its own color.  The reason I'm using the background
 color you see here is because that poem has a white ribbon day.
 Further still, a couple days ago I finally found an HTML ASCII
 table that contains the information I was seeking; and so today I
 accessed it to learn what codes would enable me to insert   é   in
 a French poet's name, and to insert   ü   in a German poet's name.
 The degree symbol was another special character I learned how
 to code from that table.  I'm not big on aphorisms, but I've written
 a few.  I made an entry for most of them.  One is:  When it comes
 to learning, the opportunities are everywhere.  I've always done a
 lot of reading.  These days I do most of my reading online. 
 - 
                                                                                  This
 WWW/Internet we are inhabiting is T. de Chardin's noosphere, the
 fourth fold of the human brain (as I see it), the magic carpet of 
 our evolution into ever / more fascinating realms.  Through it, this
 sphere of knowledge, we aretranscending toward T. de Chardin's
 Omega Point; and we will arrive there so long as we cease
 making those missteps which militate against our continuance as
 a viable species.  Mainly becausewe use fossil fuels, Michio Kaku
 informs us we are a Type zero civilization, and that advancing from
 it to a Type 1 (and there are yet higher types in his pantheon)
 civilization/ is fraught with dangers.  Carl Sagan said that the hulls
 our intelligences reside in are among the weakest of those forms
 one could imagine might exist in the universe.  Nonetheless, even as
 we are, we are deeply blessed, we are incredible; but it is exactly
 because we are so we must walk with care through each sacred now
 as we dream of zahv-trah   and re/member dots gone.   



Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00360math-11

Math       Regarding a Use for 11
 -


 I have written about this before, but I want to have 
 a separate page for it.  In conjunction with multiples 
 of "6" there is a use for "11" that generates
 multipliers for it which also are the terms in the
 minus one (minor) and plus one (major) runs of
 the multiples-of-six elimination table, making each
 of these numbers/ numbers which/ cannot be
 divided by "3".  To obtain this use/ one simply
 needs to create a sixty-six (6 x 11) multiples table.
 -
 In this particular elim table, minus one and plus one
 are replaced by minus eleven and plus eleven.  So
 66n wherein each "n" is a positive whole number,
 and the first "n" equals "1".  66   132   198   264
 330   396   462   528   594   660   are the
 beginning ten.  The results from this are: 

 -
  minor run              major run

 55 (5 x 11)       66   77 (7 x 11)       at tpo1    66 x 1 

 121 (11 x 11)    132   143 (13 x 11)     at tpo2    66 x 2

 187 (17 x 11)    198   209 (19 x 11)     at tpo3    66 x 3 

 253 (23 x 11)    264   275 (25 x 11)     at tpo4    66 x 4

 319 (29 x 11)    330   341 (31 x 11)     at tpo5    66 x 5

 -

 385 (35 x 11)    396   407 (37 x 11)     at tpo6    66 x 6

 451 (41 x 11)    462   473 (43 x 11)     at tpo7    66 x 7

 517 (47 x 11)    528   539 (49 x 11)     at tpo8    66 x 8

 583 (53 x 11)    594   605 (55 x 11)     at tpo9    66 x 9

 649 (59 x 11)    660   671 (61 x 11)     at tpo10   66 x 10


 related entry
 -
 6n elimination table entry

#
Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00359math-8

Math     Regarding a Use for 8
 -



 If one multiplies "8" by any term in the 
 natural number summation sequence
 and then adds "1" to the resulting product, 
 the resulting sum will be an odd square.
 -
 nnss = natural number summation sequence
 -
 See my nnss magic numbers for generating the 
 odd and even pairs which are all the terms
 in the natural number summation sequence
 excluding zero at sw00295m-nnssmagic.  

#
Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00358a-imp.notes

Autobio



 Important tlbajs Notes

 *

 Brian A. J. Salchert journalizes poems he wrote.
 Brian A. J. Salchert journalizes poems which write him.
 Numerous Brian A. J. Salchert poems
 gambol in his Sprintedon Hollow.
 A. J. means.

 -

 Thinking Lizard is a legitimate publisher created by Brian (A. J.) Salchert.

 -

 thinkinglizard/bajs exists in journals.aol.com space

 -

 The publisher, Thinking Lizard, has ISB numbers.
 Any reference to a Thinking Lizard ISBN
 in this Sprintedon Hollow journal
 is merely of historical interest.

 -

 No Thinking Lizard publication bearing an ISBN 
 is currently available from Brian A. J., Brian A., or Brian Salchert,
 and neither is a copy of the 1972 Rooted Sky published by
 Monday Morning Press and copyrighted by Brian Salchert.

 -

 Alden St. Cloud is a pen name Brian A. J. Salchert no longer uses.
 Brian A. J. Salchert no longer uses any pen name.

 *


 something extra
 but if the picture you see is not the 2007 May 2 one
 go to the Archive so that you experience it also, and
 don't forget to read the explanation   -   BAJS




Brian A. J. Salchert                  
 

sw00357ut-09.poem

The Undulant Trees                     




E v e n i n g



f  l  o  w
   l  o  w
      o  w
      o  w  l


f  l  e  e
   l  e  e
      e  e
      e  e  l


f  l  a  w
   l  a  w
      a  w
      a  w  l


f  l  i  t
   l  i  t
      i  t
      i  t  l


f  l  u  x
   l  u  x








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

sw00356a-pdm.count

Autobio


On this Year-day 120 this entry
will be a count of the poems,
ditties, and mutt objects
in my tlbajs journal.
.
11:17 AM   May 11, 2007   Scroll down to "Okay" tally and suggestion note.
                                     You can use the above Journal Links Center e-whip
                                     to go to all of the major Sprintedon Hollow entries. 
2008-01-31   6:11 PM      Regarding the sentence immediately above:
                                         Obviously/ I removed the link mentioned, but it
          is near the bottom of the homepage/// which can be linked to below.    

-
"Author's Quirky Introduction" is the initial Sprintedon Hollow entry.
In it are the first two poems of my This Day's Poem chapbook which is
otherwise known as simply TDP.  Three poems related to it which are not
specifically in it are under the general title: 3 Tonalities.  In today's count
I am including them in TDP as "Tonality 1" / "Tonality 2" / "Tonality 3":
3 poems/ because even though the same words are in each, their tonal
differences warrant this separateness.  They are at the sw00016tdp entry.
There also is a TDP poem of which there is an imagined discussion and
a consequent re-vision of that poem on the same entry.  That re-vision
is today being raised to separate-poem status.  Those two poems along
with the intervening words are at my sw00002tdp-2poems page.  It 
appears the TDP links entry may need to be upgraded.  If so, I will
do that later today.  With these changes, there are 40 "poems" in the
complete TDP online chapbook.  [12:34 PM]  Made some link fixes.
-
1976: in 2006 comes next.  Consisting presently of 352 sonnets--366
sonnets were in 1976, the original 1980 version of a work intended to
celebrate the USA's bicentennial--it is to date my most ambitious and
complex endeavor.  See 2006/12/30/sw00056usabysc in archives.
-
One awareness letter and 47 poems, the last being a somewhat long 
argumentative interior dialogue, follow.  The original version of this
work was printedin 1972.  I named it Rooted Sky.  Its present name 
is Rooted Sky 2007.  See 2007/01/07sw00063rsc.
5-11-07   In order that you may more clearly understand how I think,
              or (more accurately) thought, read the May, 1970, letter.
-
Then comes a 1980 volume originally called Postures.  This book
presently has 57 poems, and it now is Postures 2007.  See sw00137pc.
-
My ongoing Sets project is composed of sets of poems.  Each set has a
common tie.  In the first of the four sets so far, the tie is "cat".  In set two 
the tie is "ribbons".  In the third set the tie is "quadrunelle".  In the fourth 
set the tie is W. S. Merwin's 1973 book: Writings to an Unfinished 
Accompaniment.  Other sets are in the wings.  Like TDP, each set could
be regarded as an online chapbook.  Necessarily, I have had to provide a 
general entry.  See 2007/02/19/sw00215sgc.  7 + 6 + 6 + 37 = 56 to date.
-
Other ongoing books are Venturings, The Undulant Trees,
and my Justan Tamarind fantasy epic's Book I from 1965/66.
.
Venturings count: 10 poems
.
T U T: 32
.
J T: 6 of 101 stanzas
-
There is online in this journal a small lyric narrative longpoem from 1966/67.
I haven't counted its lines yet, but I used 9 entries for it.  The title it has is
the name of the town I was born in.
-
Lastly, there are 12 poems not affiliated with any book among my
autobio entries.
-
-
Okay:  40 + 352 + 47 + 57 + 56 + 10 + 32 + 1 + 12 =                              607
which actually is not that many, but if you have the time and the
inclination, I suggest you read all of what is in Venturings first.
-
-
Thank you.



Brian A. J. Salchert                      

sw00355o-trapt

Opinion


The Internet giveth; the Internet
taketh away.  All praise be
to the Internet.




Security | Security | Security


Whatever happened to freedom of speech?

If things keep going 
the way some
would
have them go,
each of us will be
(if we aren't already)
trapped in a cube
from which there is
no escape;
and freedom of speech,
along with many or all
of those other freedoms
each human 
has a right to,
will be dead and gone.

But this is an opinion;
therefore,
you do not need
to feel as I feel.

Blessings on all.



Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00354v-12.poem10

Venturings



 Given the Chance & the Time,


Janice & I jaytrot 3rd,
enter Milwaukee's Hyatt Regency
& wander around its lobby until
upon the suggestion of a receptionist
we ride the fourth glass elevator
to the Polaris lounge & observation deck
that circles each hour at the hotel's top

where, encouraged to by its hostess,
we make our own leisurely circle
against (by my choice) its circling
& peek at such other human works as
the port breakwater to the southeast,
the Performing Arts Center close east,
the passing Schlitz seven blocks north,

Ambrosia Chocolate near northwest whose
soft sweet odor will later bless us,
the westward stretch of the city
from the MECCA complex to Wauwatosa,
the YMCA and the Marc Plaza
as we curve southwest and south
toward the Grand Avenue Mall on the way.

Off the Harbor Skybridge sunlight glows
this afternoon of this so far cordial
November, honoring the Farmer's Almanac
if not the cold- & flu-rocked, which
two days hence will honor it still as it
muffles the sun & turns us to dreaming of
polar bears in the cocktailing snow.




-
Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00353ut-08.3poems

The Undulant Trees



In Charleston


Not waiting for thought or emotion,
Cracking a beetle's back     at the song
Of a wren, seems so like me now:
So indiscreet, leafless.  For though May
Has its own progression, rattling 
Pods of a past over my footsteps,
And dandelions, and the spaniel's
Barks; and though students gather, wait
For me, proofs to be read, or mail,
I cannot.  Stopping to remove
A pebble or     center a name,
No more   do I know than I pass,
And order's beyond me, and syn-
Thesis is yesterday's.  In shadow,
In light, I turn at a whim, stumble
Across my drive--the grass is green.




§




More than anything else


uncertainty
is 
my milieu;

yet
a small breeze
through a few blades of grass

makes me smile.




§




Young maple,


as autumn ages   you
pull your greenness
back into yourself
leaving behind
leaves of yellow
that one by one
flip   flop
becoming over
grass & sidewalk
driveway & street
a new splash of shade
remembering spring
leaving above
grayish twigs &
branches   brownish
limbs & a trunk
blotched black
delicate   stark
tough   ready
to protect     endure





-
Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00352ut-07.3poems

The Undulant Trees



Just before dark


a red-wing eases down
the wrinkling river
its cattail home

a new worm's on the hook
Mark's squinting at his line
American     Top 40     rages on

a spiral notebook's
unwinding me
against my steering wheel

breezes disturb the willow leaves
jays rankle from their lairs
the grey clouds shed no rain




§




Committees


A cold
they say
is largely
of the mind

Pressed against sinus walls
that slough off poisons
it cripples breath
terrifies blood

Behind one's eyes
insights
that yesterday came smiling
are trapped in clouds

Outstretched for sunrise
a mind has gotten
a starless moon
a body lost

If what they say is true
a cold germ
curries sadness
to feed upon




§




Breakfast Gossip


& what did we get,
slithering behind our napkins?
We did not make THEM dead:
Gerald, Tom, Lillian.

Whatever thoughts I voiced,
choked with invectives,
were mere words.
I had no news to give.

Bills & talons of hawks,
mouths of leeches:
my talk / your talk
(stirring, fidgeting/ to reach its

target/ & its friend--
a car revved up nearby;
a hard snow fell--
right while

our rolls digested)
constantly broke down.
I slammed the table as I left.
You were not pleased.  Those three are still around. 





-
Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00351a-sayings

Autobio



Today I found among my papers:




Sayings

       for Wuer Kaixi



To dictators too
                     opportunities
          to listen, learn, become noble
                     present themselves;
wise didtators
                     embrace them.
----------------------------------------
Humanity will blossom forth
          in spite of old, rancorous men
                     who've forgotten how
                     to husband flowers.
----------------------------------------
Whoever would rule well
          must break with
                     what subjugates,
an act extremely difficult
                     for one who's known
          little other
                     than subjugation.
----------------------------------------
Those who deny others
                     their rights
          as humans:  
                     to the extent that
                     they do so,
deny themselves
                     the right to be
          accounted human.
---------------------------------------
When fear of chaos
                     dominates,
          tyranny 
                     dominates;
          chaos
                     dominates.
---------------------------------------
Power
          is such a beautiful strength
                     when those who
are blessed with it
          are not
                     possessed by it
          and value
                     above it:
                                    knowledge,
                                    wisdom,
                                    charity.
---------------------------------------
He who cannot swallow his pride
                     shall choke on same.



                                   6-20-89
                                   Brian Salchert




~
Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00350a-early.influences

Autobio



In the beginning was the nerd (which rhymes with "word"), and I was 
that nerd.  So, it all began with nursery rhymes, and then there was
Poe (because we had a set of his works in our house); but the first
poet I consciously tried to learn from was Charles Peguy, which was
while I was in high school.  Later in high school, Roman poets were
an influence, particularly Publius Vergilius Maro.  During my only 
year at the physical Marquette University/ Dante Alighieri became 
the center of my attention.  I wrote a term paper about him.  During
my less than two seminary years, Gerard Manley Hopkins held sway.
Then it was on to numerous others: Shakespeare (of course) being
one of them, but Keats was the one who most entranced me.  In 1962
I wrote a sonnet to each of them.  Though "Ozymandias" cleaved to
the farawayness in my soul, I was more drawn to Shelley's statement 
about poets being the "unacknowledged legislators of the world" than
I was to his poems.  Later it was T. S. Eliot, both for his intelligence
and sonority.  Prufrock?  There were moments when I saw myself as
a kind of Prufrock.  To me "The Wasteland" was on a par with Igor
Stravinky's "Rite of Spring" and "The Firebird": too innovative to readily
appreciate.  The meditative flow of "The Four Quartets"/ however/
spoke deeply to me.  My "The Mind Has Seasons Out of Time" villanelle
was one result of Eliot's influence.  Auden was another influence, as 
were numerous others, many of whom were not English-language poets.  
I will say this: trying to/ imitate Hopkins/ is a venial sin.  For the most
part I did not attempt to imitate any other writer.  There were special
instances, though.  Four poets in those situations were: Vachel Lindsay,
Dylan Thomas, Walt Whitman, and Emily Dickinson.  Although I may
be wrong, I tend to see myself as a writer who is difficult to locate,
especially when one considers how easily I went from continuing my
tightly rhymed Onefor fantasy epic to creating my loose blank verse
Fond du Lac lyric narrative.  It could be said of me:  He sure was
(and is) willing to/ take risks. 



Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00349o-langpo

Opinion

 6

Of Language Poetry (as I Presently Understand It) and My Self


A heavy haze inhabits the sky.  It is 8 am.  It may take me many days
to enter this.  Last night, getting eye-weary reading The New Sentence,
and seeing the weather was improving, I re-engaged my computer, &
spent the next 4+ hours learning about the political scientist langpo:
Bruce Andrews.  I read about Language Poetry and him.  I read a 
lengthy talk he gave.  I took peeks at some of his creations, two of
which were similar to two years-ago creations of mine.  I read an
interview.
-
My major conclusions are:  Language Poets (if one is willing to view them
as a special breed of Homo sapiens) may be proof of Darwin's survival-of-
the-fittest theory.  They have definitety been aggressive in finding each
other, in promoting each other, and in proselytizing their social & linguistic
beliefs.  Had they not had their religious ardor in their difficult early years/
they would not have made it through those years, and would not have risen
to the cardinal pulpits they now enjoy.  This is not to say I find they are dis-
agreeable.  It is to say I have not (over the years) been aggressive enough,
but my salient differences from them are my eclecticism and my inveterate
inwardness.  The eloquence of their prose statements tells us they indeed
are knowledgeable, word-wise, and sincere.  Some feel they are the final
language avant-guard (my spelling).  That may be, especially since the  
robots in our computers are on track to become the progenitors of every 
thing.  But I digress.  Attention to the word as word with all its attendant
nuances is at the core of their poetics.  Such attention results in deeply
strange poems, but that is precisely what they want/ as they are trying to
unsettle the prevailing worldorder-tending / peon-controlling usages of
language.  Odd.  (I am going to let you figure out why.)  They are trying
to lead readers of their poems away from those industrial/governmental/
military usages of words by which they are being continually duped, and
toward/ seeing anew the words we use.  In this respect they are somewhat
succeeding, though it may be a futile effort.  The central problem, as I see
it, is this: The corporate culture has become so adept at subsuming 
whatever might threaten it/ there no longer seems to be any viable way
of escaping from that culture's control.  I once read a story (a story which/
may be/ just that) about a Japanese poet who climbed high into a mountain
and there committed suicide because/ he could no longer face/ the blank
page.  Are we as a race, an evermore enlightened and enlivened race, we
Homo sapiens (of genders known and unknown), facing such a blank page?
-
Zahv-trah, wonderers/wanderers; or later today.
-
So, the without-which-humanity-is-doomed need is this: to convince each
and every entity wherein power is the ruling tenet/ that only that which is
good for each and every human is good for it.  Only as a world community
will humanity survive and thrive on this planet, which does not mean a one-
world government is required.  If we cannot/ rise beyond/ greedy egos, we 
will not/ rise beyond.
-        



Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00348v-11.poem9

Venturings



U

    with thanks to Ron Silliman



poets          of the final line

poets          of the grand gesture

poets          of the silence within

poets          of the raucous now


Aaaa        Oooo
     i              e
                    i              a              o
Aaaa        Oooo
     i              e
                    i              a

Aaaa        Oooo
     i              e
                    i              a              o
Aaaa        Oooo
     i              e
                    i              a
                                   i              e
                                                  i              a
                                                                 i              e
                                                                                i              Aaaaaaaaaa



                                                           7:51 pm  -  April 24, 2007
                                                           Brian Salchert


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

 [ some personal/ history notes:
   -
    As I do not presently drive, and may never drive again, and have
    relocated to be near family, one of my sisters takes me wherever
    I need to go.  Yesterday, one of those places was the library we
    use.  There she dropped me off, and I went inside to return one
    book and check out another which was on hold for me.  That book
    was Ron Silliman's The New Sentence.  My sister had gone to the
    nearby Big Lots.  I walked over to there and took a searching
    amble through the store, and then went out and sat on a black
    metal bench, which was not comfortable for me, but I wanted 
    to start reading Mr. Silliman's book.  When I read the "English 
    language translation of a Fox tribe sweatbath poem" I immediately
    knew something would be afoot in my underground brain.  While I
    was writing the above on a sheet from a legal pad, thunderstorms
    were passing through, more of which are forecast for today.
    -
    In the 1990's I was a night auditor at the University Center H. I.
    in Gainesville, Florida--a city I lived in for over twenty-four years--  
    and for a while during those 90's years I used to carry on jibberish
    conversations with an employee who was the 2nd shift supervisor.
    They had a relaxing effect on us.
    -
    Also, during those years--or possibly before--I did write a poem
    which is totally phonetic, and which I thought had no real words 
    in it other than words such as "o".  I may append it. ] 




-
Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00347fdl-entry9of9

Fond du Lac



Fourteen
-

         Whoever you are, bronze man
on a bronze horse (statue beyond Scott),
I do not care.  Behind you salvia spark,
cannas blaze; and cushions of chrysanthemums . . .
just leaves.  City, city.  Here, along
the boulevard's vertebrae: evergreen
to evergreen to Lakeside Park, I feel
beginnings mixed with ends; relief, and none.
The Red Owl supermarket.  Fond du Lac's
infamous Outdoor.  Fade it.  Some say
there's a law of entropy too.  What are we:
puddles of peristent darkness, toads?


Fifteen
-

                                                     I
can't--that engine!: old, retired, and on display--
make out its--.  There!: Soo Line 613.
And the red kiddie train, whistling; the swings--
my pumping heart--metronoming; shouts, laughter;
the teeter-totters, gymnast arms; cheered sky!


Sixteen
-

From this island of pfitzer junipers
and arborvitae/ where a car may loop
to "cruise the gut" again; ease through the park
to the "big hole" harbor, the beacon point;
or fishtail toward Lakeside to be, Main Street
divides.
            Touching/ a blue-gray cone, I pass
to the left; cover/ the fronts of my shoes
with a beige film, popping a stone at a pole.
Toward the south, smoke (where the sun spreads) begins
to lemon and pinken; a near tree crackles;
the planet burns.  What good am I?  That mouse,
for instance, jittering into the weeds,
it--!  Damn.  The gravel shadows to ash,
the breeze shifts, and the wealth of Stinky Point /
and a bridge longed for, dreams in the air, ghost /
greet me.  Confusion, ten thousand dead carp
of aeration, you have stifled me well.
On the lake-edge rocks, a couple fish, kiss;
near them, grade school boys.  So it is: we come,
wiggle haphazardly, go.  Even if--
leaping at the neck of a goldenrod,
a bee warms its hind legs with yellow muffs,
then journeys south.  All I need to do is
step through those reeds.  Between the elders there--
what's that?  An early nighthawk!  Strange cry.
The water cannot be too deep out there:
no deeper than he glides now, over it--
two-and-a half men tall; yet deep enough
to die in.  But I?  Each shown argument
can be destroyed, disturbed, and all the buds
of chrysanthemums, seas.  Weeds.  Weeds, if I
rub you wrongly, you will cut.  Still, I could
tear you from your lives.  But why?  Because you
will never bloom the ways I want you to?
From the river's shore, two black guys, slim, young. . . .
Behind me, weeds, moves a city, ofwhich
I am a part: baffled, weak, but a part;
and my reachings too--nighthawk in the twigs.
Blade of quack, ragweed: the grasps of this seedling
elm may exceed yours by miles, but no choices,
no uncertainties.  Alchemists of slime,
should I demand this weed do this tree's work?
avaunt? crow like a rooster?  Dirty mouth,
Fond du Lac River.  Bullheads!  Haven't I
fallen?  Do your think your shallowness better
than mine?  City.  What time, what time is it,
city?  Bury your minds, ripples of weeds,
jazz.  Was I to know?  Tell me, tiger-bee,
was I?  . . .  Wah! git! git away!  --  God!  /  Whirred
world, will we never stop screeching, never live?






[ 2 publication notes: 
   -
   A portion of Fond du Lac, here sections "Eight" and "Nine"
   and the first 21 lines of section "Ten", was originally published 
   in the Wisconsin Review.  
   -
   Section "Two" and most of what is now section "Seven"
   along with several other passages 
   were presented in Steve Trott's 
   "Poet captures taste of Fond du Lac in his work"/
   published in The Reporter, Monday, April 27, 1981. ]





Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00346fdl-entry8of9

Fond du Lac



Twelve
-

Johnson Street.  How easy it would be
to forget this jangled age, this Age of Crises;
but will Main evaporate for that?
Surrounded by bushes and evergreens,
the Zacherl Funeral Home whispers, waits.
No need to go past there.  I'll cross Marquette
right here, return to Main, and bear it out:
even to/ Stinky Point.  Besides, I'm getting
hungry.  The Super Valu sign dances,
Borden's dances.  Flickers on, the light goes
green.  Racing/ left of a kid scooting a wagon,
my left arm raises; my belt ticks a post.
Planing around the bumper of a car
leaving the Conoco station, I notice
the corner is clear, the light yellow, then red;
I turn.  "Aaaaaaannnt."  A blue hood jolts at the edge
of my eye; shocks me across Johnson, breathing
beyond the nails of--any moment--death.
Puffing, damp, I rest.


Thirteen
-

                                  Firehouse No. 3:
and Purgatory, Greta, nothing and all,
rush; become my thoughts, snail exploring
the underside.
                       A 'hound: to Chi--; used cars,
washed: Gormican's; the Lighthouse Restaurant.
Never have eaten at this place.  Today,
though, just for fun--.  "What would you like?"  "I guess
I'll have the haddock plate."  "Say pal," a fellow 
in his thirties slaps, "you must be Catholic."
"Yes."  ". . . loading, bus to: Oshkosh, Neenah, Menasha,
Apple--"  "My name's Bob.  I've been hoping some
Catholic would sit next to me.  You see,
I've got this friend: he thinks religion's bosh.
You understand.  He tells me logic's stuck
in atoms, and that this human existence
is a, a closed system (some kind of number
set).  Get it?  He says nothing exists but
what we can see: nothing spiritual, pal,
exists!  Says logic proves it--he and his
educated friends."  "Coffee, sir?"  "Well now,
what do you say to that?"  "No thanks."  "What, pal?"
"I was just answering the waitress."  "Huh?
Haven't you been listening, pal?"  "I think--
I can't get into that now."  "Kinda sticks
in your throat, does it?  Well, my Catholic pal,
looks like we're sunk.  Helen,  another cup
of coffee.  Think there is an answer?"  "Yes."
"But you don't know it.  I thought Catholics knew
all the answers."  "Some might."  "Some might, pal?  Who?"
"I don't know."  "What's wrong?  Does the fish taste bad?"
"It's all right, I guess,"  "What's on your mind, then?"
"Horse kicks."  "Look, pal, if you've got a headache--"
"No; you wouldn't understand."  "Where you going?"
"Out.  Here, you can pay for my fish."
                                                     So man's
reduced to his chemistry, John; yet you look on
in awe at individuals because of it;
and for all your lack of belief, say you
respect man more, perhaps, than I.  It may
well be you do.  Still, "the still point of the turning
world", the fight against the wastelands, against
bland, personal ambiguity, against
unsympathetic proselytizing; yes,
even against accepting all.  To be firm,
yet tolerant.  That.  How?  And even so,'
that's not enough.  Fragile leviathan.
O Greta, I may never touch your ears
again.  






 Fond du Lac: page 9
 -


Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00345fdl-entry7of9

Fond du Lac



Eleven
-

                       Slicing between the Citgo
islands, I slip to Merrill.  The waves shrink;
the present rolls behind.  Happier, I walk
from its bright noise, and lazing through an elm
about one hundred feet away, daydream
of orioles, sparrows.  The weathered fence
of the car lot to my right seems moth dust
on my fingertips.
                         On the bridge at First,
things as they are?  By force, by fear, the sea;
by chance, the air.
                            Here, spirit--that man coming!
Who is?--I--I know him!  Yes!  Oil-rich
McNaughton.  Probably going to the bank.
But he's walking!  "Hi, O. L., where you going?"
"Church."  Judge not.  "What about you?  Coming in?"
"I guess."  Chrysanthemum sea, windy flower,
we cannot tell our closest fellow men:
we cannot tell the stars.  What can we tell?
One-fourth of us wills evil, half of us
thinks evil's holied when used to obtain
what it supposes good, one-fourth of us
seeks good through good; yet even these last rip
each other's hulls.  What is this air we breathe?!
this slender shade?!  Is logic locked in stones,
and faith alone, beyond all seeming reason?
We take this stale, volcanic century,
embrace it; love.  For what?!  Christ!?  Cross!?  We are
impossible.
                 Standing, where Merrill/ stems
Marquette: projecting beyond my eyes--the tumbling
of Main, the curve of Macy: standing, fused,
uncertain, I see my mother (softer than
a distant kite) preparing dinner, knowing
I won't be home, but worrying the same.
Or what's a mother for?
                                  That noon the ball/
went skimming over/ the fence, and spattered glass
at a butter plate, giving a couple wonder,
I was shook to envy, laughter, fear/ no sharper
than now: with O. L. in my thoughts again,
and Fond du Lac.
                          Sounds, like someone mowing!
There!  In his fifties, I'd say.  But that poppy
paisley!  He must be liberal; even so,
he slices weeds to equal heights, and we
suspect they're civilized and/ call them grass.
I suppose/ I should be at home myself,
pruning our double lot; but then, I wouldn't
be here if I cared that much about outer things.
If I cared at all, some would rub.  So what.
Does everything have to be seen, to seem
at a glance it's getting this world somewhere,
to be practical like my uncle Ben
to be worthwhile?  So we can't tell a man
by his cards, his clothes; a daisy from a cosmos;
a peach from a sun: but if similarities
conceal differences . . . all cards are jokers!
And if everything's relative . . . the grounds
for it?!  Playgrounds, neighborly fresh-mown grounds,
undergrounds?  I cannot begin to play
or cut unless I assume some absolute.
There must be grounds from which to start, or what's
this living all about?  Grandmother used
to bake gingerbread men.  If a man's junk--
atoms without meaning--why does he care,
argue: to soften the absurd?  Absurd
it is to have absurd grounds.  But what then?
Roses?  And yet, how do we get together
when one man's right is another man's wrong?
Perhaps the confines of this rock do cause
us to become schizoid (imperfect as
we are) though water flowed from a rock, a church
was built on a rock; "Choruses from 'The Rock'".
It's enough to drive a man out of his bird:
all this crazy walking around.  Of course,
I meant to challenge myself, shake the haze
from my will; face this/ century for once.  Still,
if we could be one . . . if doubts were dispelled. . . .   







 Fond du Lac: page 8
 -


Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00344fdl-entry6of9

Fond du Lac



Nine
-

                                                 Snickering off,
I pass George Webb's almost preconsciously
while biting into a piece of log cabin.
The temperature stretches itself yet
along the pebbles of my perspiration.
In Geyber's: pearls and diamonds.  Greta, Greta,
not till now, one thought of you.  Buenos Aires
shivers.  A Germ--.  Christ, help us; there's no
returning.  The bus depot's arch reminds 
me that the buses meet now farther north;
that the blind woman passing me perceives,
perhaps, as well as I.  Shall each minute
experience, Greta (girl too easy to love),
progress a man toward tunnel vision, give
him surer proof of his infinity?
Will this slim lady's purple hat/ become
an nth example, then, to dogmatize
some prejudice?  What matters it.


Ten
-

                                                 O crammed
profusion!  City?  Puke.  I yawp and gawk,
read that "The Fortune Cookie" will click
at/ the theatre before me; inhale
the warmth of marigold popcorn some kids
are buying in the carmel shop next door;
image the night a friend/ pissed on a walk--
there was no wind.  And who is strong enough
to care.  A barber pole.  This headline squawks:
"Sharp VC attack"--why not.  I squint
at men and words that/ advocate a Faith/
I do not understand.  Here is a bar,
there is another jewelry store, and there's
a novelty shop.  Things as they are.  But what?
what can we say we know, we feel, believe?
The Arcade: bowling.  So the skulls have rolled,
the hard, black balls of human power and skill;
so Main Street flicks, a space of free electrons,
vomit, song.  Pressing against the gases, flesh
and cloth seem dying blades of algae, caught
in a thick brook, disparate, desperate.
I wave at a brown convertible, friends of mine.
The driver honks.  Shouts and whistles disturb
his radio into the semi trembling
the parked car beside me; across this shoal
I oscillate through, in the bone-tight weeds
of a storefront display, a plastic car--
aPlymouth by Revell--interests me,
bends my nose to a pane again.  Above
an HO switcher, and three rubber perch,
a scum-green monster doll: who thinks to scare
me in--I would suppose--to save that engine
or/ to delight my younger sister's coming
birthday: presides.  But I am not impressed.
Outside the Arcade, three boys and a girl
chatter through smoke:  "--what she did to o' Lou,
I'd never want to--"  "Remember Chris?
Well, she's finally getting a divorce!"
"From Sambo?!"  "Yeh."  "You know, I always thought
that guy--"  Pulling the wooden, heavy door
open, I move up the stairs.  Pins are falling.
I listen for the strikes.  A housewives' league.
On alley nine a woman like a plum
hops to the line.  Her black and blue ball bumps,
rolls two-thirds of the lane/ quite straight, then hooks
to the left, tipping only the seven pin.
On alley six a slimmer gal lightly glides
to the line, letting her ball, barely heard,
go swiftly down the lane.  The pins all jump/
into the pit.  Her teammates cheer, applaud.
Another tray of beer goes out to ten.
Some of the wives are packing.  My thumb sticks
in a thumbhole.  I pluck it out, and head
back down the stairs just as a green balloon
and a laughing girl appear beside those four
I overheard when--"But Linn, what makes 
you so positive Chris will keep her kids?"
"I know her, numby.  She will."  "Okay, she will."
"Look, Rudy, Chris and I were buds. . . ."  The green
balloon floats back, and a passing nun's smile,
dipping into the little girl, pleases her.
As they round the bandying group, they arouse
in me St. Mary's and how nervously I wade
along Main.  Sand jets from the gutter, turns
and jabs at me.  My left eye itches, sinks;
flounders back up. 








 Fond du Lac: page 7
 -



Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00343fdl-entry5of9

Fond du Lac



Six
-

                           Wallace S.,
among the rushes, Moses me a bit.
Do not let this desert parch.  Pray for manna,
rain; oasis me.  Strengthen the veins
of Fond du Lac, Riplean ghost (preserved
by a chance operation--at the first;
a brilliant and eccentric K.--now),
at its high, budding point.  By 1960
this town was to die, believe it or not;
and would have, too, had it not lost some fat
before that predicted death date.  Yet even
then we needed our stubborn Merc man,
Kiekhaefer, to force our sapling council
into bud, to get it to/ spread our roots--
a task not all that easy.  But the roots spread,
and the tight buds.  Stevens, go.  I conjure
you strangely, but want myself.


Seven
-

                                              Hotel,
restaurant, furniture store, bar: the hub
of my chrysanthemum, isle of--Sargasso,
Sargasso.  Fond du Lac, however sight
would have you: here, where comfort and drink, food
and shelter ridge their shades, odors, I could stand
for hours watching Division and Main crossed,
holding your sepals, your quarters together;
keeping your quarters, your sepals distinct.
Notheast: Maple, Taft, the Lighthouse, Marquette
and Scott, and Winnebago Drive; the staid,
persistent wealth of artesian wells;
ledges, lagoons, Paul Bunyan's lake--puddle
of/ stinky waters, flash storms; Roosevelt Park:
whatever there men may ponder from under
your burnt-out roof, Retlaw Hotel.  Dim bar,
Carry to me, behind your cracking door
a woman, man, might sip and chat the whole
Northwest: our Giddings & Lewis; rail yards,
the Supple Marsh--where ice was once chunked out,
and Seymour, Johnson, Hickory; the halls,
motels, and lake shore homes; the pine, the deer.
In your soft chairs, Kramer's: Mercury Motors
and Madison and Military Road;
Grove, Western, Pioneer: the whole Southwest
a plush man could ease to mind.  Restaurant,
birth-and-death place for the vaired Southeast,
from your delicious booths a man could raid:
Vine, Highway Forty-One; the private course,
the cemetaries; Eden.  What other cross
could one so dream this town from, learn through its
fragile queens and pastel crimes, curse its stench,
exalt its soil, feel how/ the near waves flower.


Eight
-

So, Fond du Lac, your center spins a world
in the half-light of this knifed hour: let be:
your ocean's filled with aphids, paradox.
A drop of salt arching from some whitecap
burns to a crystal, dives, dissolves.  A drop
of salt: a small boy spurting from group
to group.  Weaving a double crossing, I
approach the Retlaw, lean between two bikes
heading south, and drift to the right.  Inside,
my steps are softer.  Briskly looking around,
I spot, walk over to/ a water fountain,
catching the sea I bubble up.  Bellboys stopped
before the elevator, yellow mums,
or are the asters, bud and break
from their shoulders.  Bloomings unfold us.  But, here,
much seems unwanted.  Still, the doorman only
glances, and the clerk lets me browse.  They know
their needle of unconcern will work me out
in time; that silence is the better word
to use, those easy coins.  A Cadillac--
red!--arrives.  Straining to follow it, I
accidentally nick the doorman's heel,
etching out.  He stares slant at me, then sets
a smile for the Cad guests.






 Fond du Lac: page 6
 -



Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00342fdl-entry4of9

Fond du Lac



Four
-

                 "Excuse, me, ma'am."  A blur
of daisies dangling a shoe box, she sways,
rubs past.  I screw my neck to compass her,
then loosen it.  A knotted backbone gobbing
tobacco onto the curb/ gags me.
I shop the neat display of oxfords, boots
and varia in Fondy's Big Shoe Store.
Diamond, spade, heart, club: brightly placed
in a white parallelogram of leather
whose length dimension cuts across the ankle
of a black Cuban style shoe.  ["Who is set?"
"Gambler?"  "Yes."  "Step in: I'm leaving.  Your bluffs
are just as good as mine."  "Italian style?"
"No!  What do you think we're playing?  This game's
poker!  Now place your bet or get on out."
"Yah man, gotta have wild feet for this one.
Gotta know each man's bare blood, light and dark.
Experience that, and this land of other rooms
is yours.  Ain't no sour daydreams here."]  That shining,
off-set laced, pointed oxford makes me wince;
want wrangling corpuscles, guys wise and sluffy
to be my dangerous friends, horns in shoes.
["Raise four."]  Fingertips press my collarbone.
In the pane below my neck a silver buckle,
a pin-stripped shirt--that face behind my face--
"Ray!  How you been?!"  Twisting to shake his hand,
my lungs relax.  "Well, what's the matter, Art,
am I a ghost or something?"  "No, you just
surprised me."  "What you looking at?  Those things
are for kids!  You couldn't be wanting them!?"
"Why not, I'm still teen-agey enough."  "You what?!"
"No, really!  If I had the money--."  "Well, here,
take some of mine.  Sure'd hate to see you/ melt
through this glass."  "Don't worry."  "You think I am!
It's your kick, Art.  Don't lose your nose."  Nice guy.


Five
-

Torn bags; the sidewalk again, with its shells,
weeds, memories pinched, tinted red, or rolling
perhaps, or else / cracks in the stone, the--hornet
of my brain.  Meters.  What is it with faces,
licorice to buttermilk; rainbows slung
around bodies of air?  Places to park,
to tease a fender.  Lampposts.  Banners.  Cans
to/ keep our city.  Hydrants.  Boxed-in phones.
Meeters.  What is it about blood that swirls,
squeezes/ industrial legs/arms, crowds a mouth,
a thousand mouths; whistles that swing, explode,
to blind an eye?  Today is Friday.  Here
doors/ will beat till nine: Buehler's, Sears, Ford's--. 
I think I'll get a little bag of logs
to chew on.  No, no, not tobacco, candy.
(I would have to phrase it that way.)  Let's see.
"Candy is dandy" of course, but a good liquor
tilting the arches would be a real sweet
limbo/ to warm a Friday night.  But then,
vagrant sea, ripples, no.  Let others think
another naked son's no special thing,
raise their mugs; chug their white wetnesses into
their earths, rich, poor.  You know, I like her smile.
"A quater pound of these log cabins, please."
"Anything else?"  "No."  "That's twenty-one cents."
"I have the penny."  "Thank you."  Magazines.
McCall's.  Here's a Sports Illustrated!  Na.
Why should I piddle around messing up 
mags I won't buy anyhow.  That looks--Thesz!
The old man's quite a tendril.  I wonder.  No!
"So long, Duffy."  Ought to applaud myself
for that one.  Bet I usually spend ten
full minutes here, at least, listing at pipes,
paperbacks, whatnot.  Wait!  Orange flames?  Negro.
"Arson and street war--most destructive riot
in U. S. history   11 pages
in color"  City of the angels.  Life.
Through weeds between two tires: a T-shirt stretched
on a dark brown body--capable and young,
a pair of black pants, and eyes straight ahead
that see and do not see, walk.  Behind him
the world burns, splits and splits.  The saucer men
are coming.  And I eat toothaches for kicks.
Things couldn't be better.







 Fond du Lac: page 5
 -



Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00341fdl-entry3of9

Fond du Lac



Three
-

Main Street: old battleground of needs and wants;
watery eyes; of neon bullets, fingers;
sales, investments; leases: our meeting place
of years.  Who swimming here, though well, can hook
each piece to each, reveal the puzzle's order
fashioned from parts so much alike, unlike:
eshausts from trucks and buses, cinder dust,
sirens, hearts, children, air-conditioned stores,
broken mouths smearing an alley stair, smiles,
the dance of/ indecision?  All I see
goes down and up, out and in, round and round,
until summer, it seems, is/ because things
exist, persist, at all.
                              Looking through such
knots of motion, a man might spit, prefer
some woods to be hunted/ and bows of rain,
though he's among those who also desire
human touch.
                     Main Street: at that down hour
of two/ when more than half its lights are pulsing
yellow, the fever in tourists' eyes, the drought
in truckers' arms, a vacuum at the heart.
Buildings appear a nerveless ligature 
then, as if without their cellular crowds,
they were an asteroid's mountain range; or each
a scab.
            The sun has tumbled into roofs
and moved the minds of shoppers toward their homes
and moved the Earth another hour toward death,
warming the dusty stones to ninety-six
at the First Fond du Lac National Bank.
A quiet mother shades her babies deep
in their dark green, nudges a turtle toy;
then releasing the brake, rocks them, and ripples
the way I came, like a word.  Two older women
toddle in front of Penny's shoe department,
uneasy in their pillowed skins.  The sign
reads "walk".  I taste their bobbing breasts, their sweat,
as I meet them.  Kids dash saltily by.
Three bodies' lengths before me/ pigtails squeal;
a pink girl whirls, slaps the arm and cheek
of a tan brown-eyed boy, shrinking in his
Bermuda blue-jeans.  "Why don't you go back
to California?" she snaps.  A friend
of his: (ochre sleeping across his eyes
and clumping down his neck) in Greekish sandals,
a spotted T-shirt, yellow madras shorts:
resting his right hand on the ruffled boy's
left shoulder, coolly says, "This town's tighter
than vacuum seal--ay Whit?"  Whit turns.  "Man,
I wish I had the wrist."
                                  "Hey you, what you
so interestedin?"  Man questions me.
I shake my head and, as if in a daze, edge
away; then, "He's just a bubble of air.
Forget him."
                    City, city: grand, expansive,
seminal, macabre: the floor of a sea
ridged with coral, speckled with/ wisps of fish,
and gardened with anemone, how I
would swim through you, would mix my heart and head
in you, hold you entire; devour your parts,
late summer city, gold chrysanthemum!
Elbow to shoulder, smile to frown, a pound
of Whitman's squished by a tire: how many bones
scrape themselves against your rusting tin, town
of shifting depths? how many reach to cleanse,
to spray the plastic bandage on?  ". . . get drunk.
That'll keep your tubes warm.  Better 'an
jumpin' off a ledge or hangin' yourself."
"Yah?  Better than humpin' a broad?"  Desire,
Mexican fire bush, salvia, beet: none,
I have none here, but One.  Buildings, machines,
people.  If these are what we must explore,
contend with--"Damn it, I tell ya, there is
no God!" / "First niggers, now fags!  Who the hell
wants 'em?"--Main Street, Main Street, how can I not
pray, not rebel?   







 Fond du Lac: page 4
 -



Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00340fdl-entry2of9

Fond du Lac



One
-

Ring the bridge rail!  Open wide, blood, bones,
will!  Your concerns are with the now--what is;
its meaning; not with what you want it to seem!
If rivers scrub low through arrowhead/ mud,
nudging twigs at their minnows, soaking butts,
chugging sludge/ chemical refuse, flashing white
bass/ swallows/ skies, submit, tampering heart:
Look: here a hurtling bag, a sliding box,
becomes at times a pigeon, or a dog;
but today the air swings hammock-like,
does not deceive, while pigeons wrinkle down
from riding over Fond du Lac, and scuffle
to their nests under the storage bins' roof,
black from the dust of anthracite; today
mongrels mix, tumble their beige and umber
coats into the garden of oily weeds
by the Milwaukee Road industrial track,
somersault yelps to the river's edge,
stop, ruggedly scurry, chase up the bank,
shiver, and hurrying off for the bridge
at Forest, run my sight.  
                                 Those several boys
arguing there--beyond them beads of cars
jerk, slip their ways--wonder if I know
any of those guys?  The puniest kid
seems--ya!  Split.  Split!  Look at him come, whipping
around the guard rail (kick at the mutts), pegged
tan pants, brown curly hair, an aqua shirt--
faded--its sleeves cut off & its tails popping,
black Cuban heels quivering, pointing back!
No, I guess I don't know them.  The two
who started out after him, out on the bridge
again with their leader, rough-up the kid
they have held.  Swallows skitter, people pass;
and the three toughs, like a giant ant, drag
their prey down somewhere, unbothered.  This one,
bewildered, turns, races up to the walk
and slows, glaring at me as if I were 
an evasive punching bag; then skirts on by.
What I fantasize he schemes intrigues me
almost enough to follow him.  I might
enjoy--however, my thoughts--Lakeside Park
is greener, riper.


Two
-

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hailstones, cobblestones--
in that swayback third of a block from Macy
to this Mayville spur, I remember both,
lodging a score of tires in ice; uneven
and bowled, forcing the newsboys' bikes through slush,
skating their wheels, hammering papers loose.
Hail again?  Perhaps.  But the street's smooth now;
slowly, erratically, ruddy bricks
descend from the Reporter Building's frame,
scabiosa turning chrysanthemum,
while across First the Post Office sorts, feels
the thoughts of thousands.  In several years,
what it will be, I do not know.  Bright cars,
dented cars, young girls skipping, men with canes,
horns, yells, a lady reaching--kneeling down--
for a dropped dime, three businessmen converging,
two six-foot boys with a mail cart; a friend 
I won't hello because I can't remember
her name--the courthouse clock is wrong again.






 Fond du Lac: page 3
 -



Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00339fdl-entry1of9

[ The poem being introduced here is a lyric narrative centered
   around a persona walking through a part of his hometown at the
   time of the 1960's Los Angeles riots.  Originally written in
   1966/67 while I was attending the Writers' Workshop in Iowa City,
   it owes its existence to an intuitive challenge from my mentor. ]  
   -
   [ insert from May 10, 2003 ]
   During my first year at Iowa, I had written a number of short poems;
   but had been devoting myself to fashioning a fantasy epic in stanzas
   of nine lines rhyming aababcbcc, a nasty scheme I then thought I had
   invented; and even to this day I have not done the research I would
   need to do to be sure.  So, if I want, I can go on thinking of it as the
   "Salchertian Stanza"; but it will only be more proof of the foolishness
   in my ego.  Blessedly, my mentor, George Starbuck, seeing what was
   in me and what was not, said I should write from something I was
   more familiar with; and so by the prongs of his pitchfork/ enabled me
   to make the primal leaps of a literary/mind-cracking journey I am yet
   on, and expect to persist on, no matter the opinions of others [thank
   you, Pushkin] who happen to encounter--here & there--a sentence
   or more I have written, or a simple sketch.




Fond du Lac


          The only wisdom we can hope to acquire
          Is the wisdom of humility:
                        from East Coker by T. S. Eliot

Prologue

Believing/ as might wings/  Earth ferries deaths
my essence should not tolerate, I've tried
to lose its factories, its predators
under the shadows of my flight; to drift
among hills in ages gentler than mine.
Rebellion: over beauty, over truth;
Idea: over the badinaged smile
in the empty bottle.  Rather than attempt
to find and crush one berry for those mouths
hidden in the small caves of tunnels, cans,
I have hid my own.  There were summer days
I moved, a neurotic rook, turning
left, right,left at each new corner, entranced
toward a Circle, to see this planet dim;
to dream.  And there was a night, cooled with mist,
when shoes were mostly home, I hung near a pool
in Taylor Park to--"Only the Lonely"--hum,
wanting, off from the square pavilion there
(shelter for the custodians of cards,
the cutthroat Sheepshead house), to harmonize
me/you/and that: October-loaded world.
But having to choose, ignorant of . . . sullens;
my eyes itch, ache; their eyelids give to sleep.






 Fond du Lac: page 2
 -


Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00338jt-b1.e1

 -
 [ Information about, the "Proem" to, and the first 5 stanzas of Book 1
   of what was Onefor when I composed the 900 lines in that Book in
   1965-66/ comprise this entry.  I saw it as a fantasy epic which would
   express how I felt about planet Earth and its human passengers.  I 
   was in The University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop Program, and that 
   long poem was to be my MFA thesis.  I was due to graduate in June
   of 1967, and 1967 was not far off.  Thankfully my mentor, the late
   George Starbuck, realizing my effort would not suffice, had a wiser
   intuition.
   -
   This, then, is a failed work.  On 9-28/29-82 my alter ego, Alden
   St. Cloud, penned its "Proem" stanza.   Note the difficult aababcbcc
   rhyme scheme I chose.  I doubt I am its originator, but I might be.
   Perhaps I should have burned this poem, but that would have been
   contrary to how I am. ]




Justan Tamarind


Proem

That we prevail through many fields proclaims
From ancient Cairo's to Brasilia's aims
The wisdom in the folly of our dreams.
Or does it?  Still, for us to dream, for names
To be remembered, is good.  Human schemes
Will be: both ways of worth, and ways which rust
And end/ so that whenever living seems
Too smooth / too rough, we will be taught how trust
Can wither, or seed wonder, in our dust.


Book 1

White lifts the sun; the moon falls cold, seared.
Great stars flare out, known to none; and the weird
Concoctions of ruined alchemy fade
In the memory; but the yet more weird,
More mortal, vital minglings found and made
By new creators, here, on Moiland's soil,
Or any else, appear, and do not fade;
But concentrate, more surely cleanse, and soil--
As water rinses clothes, or rusts a coil.

And I, being as one present to each warm act
I sing, where, thought through words, fiction weds fact,
Move delighted, howsoever I stir
In time or heaven, for such is my pact
With nature and with art, and this the spur
My daemon of creation leads me to:
The sacred Eribon, where kings confer;
Where, on this cloudless noon,like changless dew,
Ten thousand kings will sparkle into view.

Thus, Spirit wholly of that Being
Who orders all from rocks to/ deepest seeing,
Eternal Teacher, Comforter: firm,
Lift my voice, Ipray/ that, like a guide skiing
Down an Alpine run, my every turn
Shall own a happy grace of limbs and mind
So unified in doing, I will discern/
All things before me; recall/ all things behind;
And reinforming art, praise mankind.

Yet feelings most You must invade/ if one
Whose kingdom is this day to be undone
Would move us with those words his airs are veined.
"Look well at Justan: king, Tamarind's son,
Who mutilates with knowledge he has gained
Yet heals with kind dexterity; who runs
As swiftly as that Pheidippides who trained
His unremitting legs toward helpless ones
And piston-peppered from opposing sons--

As Darius/ coughed in the sea--until
The words of victory were rung from hill
To hill, and he, excited most, had burst before
The city's gates, shaking, gasping them still,
Then whispering; then, because he could no more,
Fell; and in their arms received his death:
One breathless, breathless death.  Who knows the sore
He raises/ with his hot, invective breath;
But lets it blaze and blister// none/the/less."






                                                                           Book I:   e2
                                             Justan Tamarind     Book I   links



-
Brian A. J. Salchert                   

sw00337v-10.poem8

Venturings



 [ Prenote:  I do not hide the fact my sensibility is Gay-oriented,
                but my physically-active Gay days were short-lived.
                My first encounter occurred on my 32nd birthday.  It
                was not planned, but I did// allow it to be.  Less than
                five years later/ my last such encounter occurred.  I 
                do not know the exact date, but a syphilis scare was
                the reason.  I turned 32 in January of 1973.  The 
                poem below was written in 1985. ]  


 = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =



 A Look In


     1

Because I'm a writer,
I am marginal.

Were I not marginal
and not a writer,

human life
would be less full.

So I confess,
and speak for you.

So I rejoice,
and speak for you.

Out of my oddness,
an ordinate balance.

Do not the maimed
often heal us?


     2

A 44th year absorbs my body;
a 30th year words arouse me;
a 20th year a woman shades me: well, and ill;
a 14th year admitting keeps my heart embracing
chests of men;
a 40th year Catholicism spikes my spirit;
one more year, over & over torn apart
by the horses of my intransigent cares,
I disrupt me.

And yet my left eye
giggles at my
right eye.

Across the Gulf of Mexico,
from the Yucatan to Louisiana,
ruby-throated hummingbirds
buoy dreams;
still, just the other afternoon
I watched a dead tupelo leaf
held by a yard-long filament to
the leaf-end of a bur oak twig
turn, spin, wind & unwind in the mischievous air.


     3

The winds are every shape and color,
stopped as they are by every shape more dense than they are
so that even when they most rave, and blast and bear
in fearsome and contorted howling frail humans
and sundry of their artifacts and facts of nature
not themselves, they are molded by/ what they rive
and pass in their transparencies (however blurred)
the hues of white and (into black) all the grand diminishments
of white.

I am the winds, countering the obstacles,
sometimes as a feather might, sometimes as wrecking balls,
unsure of my approaching moods orhow the winds
others are will change my force and clarity, and temperature,
or how the non-wind obstacles/ will kink my moves.


     4

Eclectic,
stubborn,
yet likely to change,
because I'd imagine
the breadth and depth
of all that is human,
light words
as well as dark
(and all the colors
and intensities)
flash from me.
I do, however,
admit I whiff undertones
of teasing, irony, sarcasm
which othen enough--
perhaps mistakenly and so unfortunately--
are aimed at the wrong "object";
and which perhaps,
too much at times,
obtrude.
Still, it sometimes seems the only way
I can cut the sweetness of the sentimental
and the sourness of the didactic in me;
for--however momently the requisite fruit
of the green dreams of a fertile heart--
I do often mean
to be sentimental
and I do often mean
to be didactic,
though I know
how unpalatable
they are to many.


     5

Let them mingle: the mind's eye & the termagant.
Let the corkscrew the heart is
open the bottles our spirits wait in.

For thirty years I have typed & scribbled,
erased. erased. trying somehow to put together
my scattered life trying to root the universe.





Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00336a-was.is

 Autobio



Then and Now


When I was in high school (1955-59) I was among the elite
intellectually, but I was also among the physically small; and
while--as in elementary school--I did participate in school
and non-school activities, often in my "free" time I created
link-by-link chains of fantasies.  Though I did not know then
I had an INFP personality, I did know I had a melancholic
temperament.  I did know I had a good memory, but not a
superb memory.  Though I was quite fast over short distances,
I did know I had an oxygen-intake disability and that/ my
body was allergy-prone, and that/ my appendix was weak--
a fact I so consistently forgot it almost cost me my life in the
spring of my 22nd year.  [ Note:  One does not become 1
until one's first year is done. ]  Had I not been able at times
to stand back and laugh at myself, I might very well have/
committed suicide.  As it was I almost did so accidentally
several times.  Especially about sexual matters, I was rock
naive.  Puberty pulsed into my consciousness when I was
twelve, about the same time I first attempted to write a
poem and paint on a canvas.  Along with that physical change
came psychological changes I was not able to properly address. 
On occasion I/ became aggressive/ toward other boys, but
most of the time my lack of physical strength (blessedly)
prevented me from being a danger.  I do not know how my
epileptic brain (which was not a known back then) relates to
how I was, but I do know I had a habit of seemingly spacing
out when a thought-process block stymied me--a habit/
condition/disability I still have.  Almost always/ I've been the
last one to finish an exam.  While I sometimes have a lightning
wit, when it comes to matters of consequence, my mind at
times is years slow.  I easily misunderstand or simply do not
get/ jokes; and (to me) practical jokes are definitely not prac-
tical, nor are they jokes.  I "think" a well-designed sufficiently-
tested humor course would benefit the human community on
this planet immeasurably.

--from the hermit who lives in the 
fantasy realm known as Sprintedon Hollow--


As to the VA Tech rupture, I extend my gratitude/ to
Josh Corey, Ron Silliman, Nikki Giovanni, and all others
of like mind, both those who are yet amongst us and
those who are not.


Now I am going to proffer something many may not agree with:
One never knows when, or how; but God does, and knows why.



-
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                  

sw00334ut-06.2poems

 The Undulant Trees

The Dance


Watching the lights
   spin through minds--
      red, yellow,
I think of fires and traffic signals.

Not a
baby
      cries
            but spins through minds--
                    red, yellow.



- - - -




Fishing at Dawn


Uh!
      spuf      spuf  
                        swuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
                                                  uh!
spuf
         swup
         swuuuhp
                   swap
                           shivers
                           of rainbows
                                            spouts
                                of water
                                     slapped
                                     into drops
the cave of a mouth
                              fins
                              writhing
                                       3 feet    high
          shuddering the wind
                               glancing       the fire

-
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                  

sw00332olp-9poets

Some IWW Classmates: (1965-67)


 Late last night into this morning I did "name poet"
 searches of nine former IWW classmates:
 -
 -
 Michael Dennis Browne
 -
 Steve Orlen
 -
 Jon Anderson
 -
 Peter Klappert
 -
 Julia Vinograd
 -
 Peter Cooley
 -
 Eric Nightingale (?)       --uncertain about--
 -
 Harold Bond       --died in March of 2000--
 -
 Richard Geller
 -
 -



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                  

sw00329s-aw9.4poems

 -

 Accompaniments: Where There Is Room
       4 poems for W. S. Merwin
       written in my copy of his 1973 book:
       Writings to an Unfinished Accompaniment




1

"Summer Tales"


A rock swallows     berries of rain
Sunlight     paints your hand
A mouse climbs     darknesses spinned

Friends / acquaintances     chip / stain
each thought we shape     stand
lengthened   shortened   fattened   thinned

Leaves buzz     like the saw's chain
Waves suck     rocks to sand
In the answering grass     the questioning wind


       (newly rewritten on page 42 under "Spring")




2

"Faith"

In the midst of Hell
the robin's egg


       (written on page 49 under "Nomad Songs")




3

"Possessed"


We wait upon the edicts
of our things
and bow to them
religiously


       (written on page 51 under "Ash")




4

"Valleys"

Sparrows grapple
with crows of wind
but crouch in their houses
when hail pelts

or the fear of hail
from enemy eyes
catches me slinking
from the air


       (written on page 65 under "Summits")





Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00328s-aw8.4poems

 -

 Accompaniments: Where There Is Room
       4 poems for W. S. Merwin
       written in my copy of his 1973 book:
       Writings to an Unfinished Accompaniment




1

"And tomorrow"


will you be saying
what you say now
with any less brilliance

rainbow

because someone
has seen you
entered you

and understood

and given to others
each drop of you


       (written on page 37 under "At the Same Time")




2

"Graves"


are what we are born with
what we make them
the pains in dreams


       (written on page 38 under "The Wharf")




3

"Despair"


Heaven is a
snapping turtle
with lilies
in its mouth


       (written on page 39 under "Beggars and Kings")




4

"Just enough light"


to see
to write by
here in my Nova
this ten p.m.
looking out
over Lake Winnebago
near the white lighthouse
in Lakeside Park

the floating lights
of two boats
carrying me

the land lights around
making me still

faint stars

headlights turning
behind me
to my right
my eyes recording
the play of them


       (written on page 41 under the conclusion to "The Unwritten")





Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00327s-aw7.4poems

 -

 Accompaniments: Where There Is Room
       4 poems for W. S. Merwin
       written in my copy of his 1973 book:
       Writings to an Unfinished Accompaniment




1

"Windows"


come & go

in your hair
in your skin

in the leaf of a oak

in the air

Open to them


       (written on page 30 under the conclusion to "A Door")




2

"A Wall"


A row of sunflowers

A voice

An odor of 
daylight
textured
like the faces
of a leaf--
a carpenter's     hand


       (written on page 32 under the conclusion to "A Door")
           [ "A Wall" was published in Wisconsin Review
                            volume 12   no. 4     1978 ]




3

"A Floor"


Ordered space
the top       of a bottom
in the soil   in the sky  in a dream
able to be       a wall or a ceiling
to slant

an inhabiter of times
of memories

the erratic edge of the universe
beneath which
nothing


       (written on page 33 under"A Door")




4

"Ceilings"


The summits of our emotions

Beings we look up to
with axes in our hearts

Desires finally ripe

The most we are willing to pay
walking on our knees
for the chance
to die

The last day of Earth
on a high place of ritual
where costumed dancers
chant their fate / on low-wall floors of stone
while the Divinity of White
rises in the north
the appearance of her feet
signalling the end

Our awakenings
our births


       (written on page 35 under the conclusion to "A Door")





Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00326s-aw6.5poems

 -

 Accompaniment: Where There Is Room
       5 poems for W. S. Merwin
       written in my copy of his 1973 book:
       Writings to an Unfinished Accompaniment




1

"Poetry"


is full of ashes       full of bees
is a desert
                           drowns


       (written on page 24 under "The Current")




2

"Habit"


I would have tasted her message
inhaled her love
touched her songs   in my toes


       (written on page 25 under "Something I've Not Done")




3

"Owl to       Owl"


There are enjoyments and
enjoyments

One enters
where one can

When age and wealth and preferences
bless me       with their light

I enter my   dark       eyes
I enter here


       (written on page 26 under "Tool")




4

"In a Pool Somewhere"


the wrinkling face of a lily


       (written on page 27 under "Bread")




5

"Me"

Wind
disturber of rest / of contemplation
designer of rags / composer
chameleon
wastrel / saviour
invisible


       (written on page 28 under "Habits")





Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00325s-aw5.4poems

-

 Accompaniments: Where There Is Room
       4 poems for W. S. Merwin
       written in my copy of his 1973 book:
       Writings to an Unfinished Accompaniment




1

"Prayer: Looking at a Mirror"


Out of Mystery
I am
and what I can do

Out of boiling space
and sea       and land

the comings together
of particular people
at particular times

Out of accidents in
the dances of dust
and wind   water   fire

         I honor them


       (written on page 20 under "On Each Journey")




2

"Lover"


whichever   one you are

leaf of light
voice of black black green
tongue of wind

your enterings of me are deep
your embracings full

mine
of you
pale


       (written on page 21 under "Beyond You")




3

"Stars"


Porcupines
Waves


       (written on page 22 under "Their Week")




4

"Death"


is a cauldron of peonies

My head and torse
blister       dissolve

Blackbirds fly through sparows
through the walls
of a dream

Insects
slither
down


       (written on page 23 under "Old Flag")





Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00324s-aw4.4poems

 -

 Accompaniments: Where There Is Room
       4 poems for W. S. Merwin
       written in my copy of his 1973 book:
       Writings to an Unfinished Accompaniment




1

"The Sands Between My Toes"


What matters is
not so much where I am
as where I am not

airs cresting 
behind my wanding fingers

bruises of flowers
beneath my soles


       (written on page 15 under "The Clear Skies")




2

"Questions"


Do you really want to bartend
Really want sex
Are the sunlights in your past
that hard to look at

And what about seclusion
in the rattling caves and pines
Could you really get   into nakedness
all day long

Are there splinters in your brain waves
Are there sparrows' nests in your ears


       (written on page 17 under the conclusion of
                       "To Be Sung While Still Looking")




3

"Against the light of a season"


there is little space to be
the suck and whine of fire


       (written on page 18 under "Under the Migrants")




4

"The Head That   Won't Stay Put"

       --from Janice
          sprouting legs and arms
          and at every crossroads
          not knowing which way to go--


the elm leaf limping through parched grass
the unicyclist astonishing   Golden Gate Park
the ripe moon on a plate of water
the earthy shirtless boys making hay

the body spurting blood
that won't stay put


       (written on page 19 under
          "On the Silent Anniversary of a Reunion")





Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00323s-aw3.4poems

 -

 Accompaniments: Where There Is Room
       4 poems for W. S. Merwin
       written in my copy of his 1973 book:
       Writings for an Unfinished Accompaniment




1

"In This Last Hour of Sun"


by towering grays
grayed
around gray me
and the gray rock I rest on
and the quilted brown-gray lake

white sails stroll
a bright-green fly jewels my finger
a dull rainbow of cars looks out

and later/ when the acquaintance leaves

near a soft-magenta margin of sky
where the blackish horizon ruffles

flashes
of ragged
cracks

glowing fans of electrons

periods

of water   of light


       (written on page 11 under "Letter to the Heart")




2

"Does it fit"


to talk of Eden

after the snake
has wound
back under the roots

and the Son
has somehow magicked Himself
beyond our clouds

though this is   where I am?


       (written on page 12 under "Memory of the Loss of Wings")




3

"Gide"


coming to terms--
that 1 + 1 = 2   not 3--
is hard

so one poem's sour
another sweet
another this

me in my car near the lighthouse again
boy/girl lovers on either side
my finger's shadow   darkening   where I write

and the waves snap--
a few as far as   my windows
closing in on midnight sinking away

while someone perhaps   awakened
wonders   whose I am:
his or hers


       (written on page 13 under "The Old Boast")




4

"Mt. Tamalpais"


I was not the first there
the day I went up
I was not the last

but where I walked
climbed
only I did

and how I prayed
that Sunday morning
I did alone

yet resting talking
I know others
and the birds rocks shrubs grasses trees
and the windy light that warmed me
and the amoeba fog below
moved   worshipped
more sacredly   than I


       (written on page 14 under "The Day")





Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00322s-aw2.4poems

 -

 Accompaniments: Where There Is Room
       4 poems for W. S. Merwin
       written in my copy of his 1973 book:
       Writings to an Unfinished Accompaniment




1

"As I Just Said"


one must

but then

there are times

oh

you know

don't you

leaf

in my hand


       (written on page 7 under "Looking Back")




2

"The Poem  (v3)"


Most of that day
he worked on it

auditioning words
selecting their places

from before the glare
till nearly midnight

wanting to stage
a perfect show

though he understood well
the wanderings of clouds

and Earth's inability 
to hold still


       (written on page 8 under "Song of a Man Chipping an Arrowhead")




3

"Chuck It"


No silence no nothing
cymbal clangs
cars trucks
skreeeee krawuge
bledding steel bleeding asphalt
stained windows   roaded

I am a harsh wind
in tan cornstalks
shivering cracking
a fist and claw
raking pummeling
I cannot stay


       (written on page 9 under "The Silence Before Harvest")




4

"Child"


Praise the leaf
as it turns

the ages
in your eyes


       (written on page 10 under "Cat Ghosts")
              [ "Child" was published in Wisconsin Review
                             volume 12   no. 4     1978 ]





Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00321s-aw1.4poems

 -

 Accompaniments: Where There Is Room
       4 poems for W. S. Merwin
       written in my copy of his 1973 book:
       Writings to an Unfinished Accompaniment




1

"And June, Listen,"


whenever a hidden piece of light
curses or screams
it is tortured with dirt and bits of grass

which it can only surround
but cannot pearl
or fester out

and if it continues
the entire cell it shines in
is filled

and if it continues still
it is catapulted into the sun


       (written on page 3 under "Early One Summer")




2

"Equation"


If it is in darkness
that we see

it is in silence
that we hear

in emptiness
that we feel

in fasting
that we taste

in an ocean's wave
knots from even a rock
that the fragrances of lilies
kiss us


       (written on page 4 under "Eyes of Summer")




3

"San Francisco"


Like a clean electron
sure of itself
yet jittery
I sped
to the mountainous coast
imagining
               burial
in quaking stone
or blossoming
into a star
or transformed to a bee
headed down under
or bandying
from cove to mountain to cove
or
abruptly 
burning
home


       (written on page 5 under "End of Summer")




4

"Anxiety"


One must keep it intact
pampered like a knickknack

its colors though dull
are essential

and its delicate shape

Should you sleep with your wife
or stay up to write

Without it
you can be certain


       (written on page 6 under "The Distances")





Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00320sc-set4.aw.links

 Set 4  links

 to Accompaniments: Where There Is Room
        --for W. S. Merwin--



       4 poems - aw 1
 -
       4 poems - aw 2
 -
       4 poems - aw 3
 -
       4 poems - aw 4
 -
       4 poems - aw 5
 -
       5 poems - aw 6
 -
       4 poems - aw 7
 -
       4 poems - aw 8
 -
       4 poems - aw 9
-
-



Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00319a-signal.links

 Autobio


 [ First this search recommendation:
       John Barr American Poetry New Century ]



 This is a links/information entry to works of mine
 which are significant to me personally.  It is not
 complete because some of those works are not
 back online yet.

 =

 -
 If you wish to read my Homer-centered sonnet,
 my "Sonnet to Shakespeare" or
 my "To John Keats" sonnet, 

 scroll to Year-day 281, Year-day 284, Year-day 285
 -
 -
 "When You Are Young" homily
 -
 -
 poem: "Snow"
 -
 -
 snowman poem
 -
 -
  Birthday Ribbons poems
 -
 -
 poem: "Tonight"
 -
 -
 "The Mind Has Seasons Out of Time" villanelle
 -
 -
 poem: "Symphony"
 -
 -
 Letter (May, 1970)
 -
 -
 poem: "The Forty-One Days of Kim"
 -
 -
 poem: "After the Apple"
 -
 -
 manifesto poem: "At First to Poets"
 -
 -

Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00318v-9.poem7

Venturnings



After the Apple


If no one cares to know my name,
I cannot say I blame them.
Yet, nonetheless, I will trudge on,
and crunch the leaves and use the air,
inventing for myself, I guess,
a strand of pleasure in the night.
If words are what one cares about:
the ways they crash, and lift, and cry,
one's turns with them, then, will occur,
though only reach that magnitude
of power and beauty and sharp surprise
that at those times// one's self/ possesses.
So, be it Sirius or asteroid ash
or sparkling rainbows or tufts of dust,
if no one cares to know my name,
I cannot say; I cannot/ name them.




                                [ from 10-25-00 ]






Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00317v-8.poem6

Venturings



I'm tired of life,


bless it!
I'm just gonna live it,
simply
live it.
Fill the thimble,
if thimble I am.
Fill the bucket,
if bucket I am.
Fill the reservoir,
if that I am.
And if only ephemera come of it,
then only ephemera,
shimmering.
I'll at least have tried,
Thomas Aquinas contemplating angels,
Alphonsus smiling at the monastery door.

And if while I'm imagining
sailboat, satellite, butterfly,
rackets of blue jays
break in,
then rackets of blue jays do.
I also clamor, shake my colors
in the dilettante sun;
sweep down over parking lots
for scattering seeds.
I also vanish in the leaves & twigs.
I also survive.



                 [ from 8-23-85 ]





Brian A. J. Salchert                  

sw00316ac-links.entry4

 Autobio

                 [ last modified: 2008-10-16 ]

Autobio Poems is a double chapbook of 19 and 24 poems

( * )  indicates loose e-chap entry
-
( fv )  indicates First Verses e-chap entry




November 2006       (9 entries)
-
3 blog notes
-
of my personal self and my poet self
-
noosphere
-
2 about where
-
busy day
-
busy day 2
-
11-19-06 about me
-
University of Iowa Alumni Survey note and "Snow" poem
-
busy day 3
-
-
       2007
January       (7 entries)
-
prayers
-
new residence
-
ice storms
-
settling in
-
two notes
-
settling in two
-
old info
-
-
February       (17 entries)
-
hermit poet
-
colors: the IE binot that was
-
West Bend News "Spice of Life" interview
-
four notes
-
on being human
- 
about this journal
-
blessings: on 02-14-07
-
hmmm
-
summary
-
outage
-
tags
-
two notes
-
sexuality
-
weather
-
calm before storm
-
an old poem  ( * )      poem 1
-
autobio
-
-
March       (2 entries)
-
how the GRE altered my life
-
aphorisms
-
-
April       (19 entries)
-
greeting ( * )      poem 2
-
star poem  ( * )      poem 3
-
bird poem  ( * )      poem 4
-
Holy Thursday thoughts  |tomb poem  ( * )      poem 5
-
Good Friday thoughts  |  Jesus in "hell" poem  ( * )  poem 6
-
Holy Saturday thoughts  |  God as "Rune" poem  ( * )  poem 7
-
Easter Sunday thoughts  |  two disciples poem  ( * )  poem 8
-
poem: "To Those I Am One With"  ( * )      poem 9
-
curious lucid dream
-
weird poem  ( * )      poem 10
-
links to personally-significant works of mine
-
experimental poem written in red on a white napkin  ( * )  poem 11
-
poem: "Malaise"  ( * )      poem 12
-
poem: "Each and Every"  ( * )      poem 13
-
2 poems: "February" ( * ) and "September"  ( * )  poems 14 and 15
-
Then and Now
-
some poetic influences
-
Sayings
-
count of poem, ditty, muttobs in journal
-
-
May (9 entries)
-
Important Notes
-
Hermit Stance
-
Interim - natura naturans
-
ego
-
tribs
-
in the far beyond (galaxies and avant-garde poetry)
-
Internet poets
-
A Special Thank You (for my life)
-
The Yeats-Auden-Saenz-Mackey Connections
-
-
July (8 entries)
-
6 Lines  ( * )      poem 16
-
My First AOL Journal
-
Another View of Myself
-
Creativity
-
On Not Fitting In
-
Recess  ( * )      poem 17
-
Okay  ( * )      poem 18
-
pdm count - tally 2   w/ 4 Lines ( * )      poem 19
-
-
August (3 entries)
-
Timely Thoughts
-                                                       
An Email to Anyone
-
meeting/lines/Pessoa
-
-
September (3 entries)
-
facing it
-
email (eml) 5 poems
-
All About Me #2
-
-
October  (2 entries)
-
US states I've resided in
-
some quick insights
-
-
November (3 entries)
-
24 First Verses   titles/links   ( fv )
-
The Realm of Ibnar
-
confusion dream
-
-
December (1 entry)
-
pdm count - tally 3
-
-
May 2008 (1 entry)
-
photo   math project note   poetics link
-
-
June 2008 (1 entry)
-
Note about the 13 books of poems in this journal
-
-
July 2008 (1 entry)
-
five Autobio links about me
-
-



Brian A. J. Salchert