Uploaded on March 23, 2008
by judy stalus
I wanted to be sure to reach you; though my ship was on the way it got caught in some moorings. I am always tying up and then deciding to depart. In storms and at sunset, with the metallic coils of the tide around my fathomless arms, I am unable to understand the forms of my vanity or I am hard alee with my Polish rudder in my hand and the sun sinking. To you I offer my hull and the tattered cordage of my will. The terrible channels where the wind drives me against the brown lips of the reeds are not all behind me. Yet I trust the sanity of my vessel; and if it sinks it may well be in answer to the reasoning of the eternal voices, the waves which have kept me from reaching you.
-Frank O'Hara, "To the Harbormaster"
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Archaic Torso of Apollo
We cannot know his inscrutable head
in which the pupils dilated. However
his torso still glows like a candelabra
in which are his displays, though infrequent
stopping and shining. Otherwise the bow
of his breast could not dazzle, and
in quiet turns of his loins, a quiver
could not go to every bliss-bearing center.
Otherwise this statue passed time distorted
and shortly, under the weight of a fall, glistened
not unlike the fur of a wild beast
and did not break out of his boundaries
like a star: because there is no place
that does not see you. You must
change your life.
--Translated by Renee Zepeda
A superabundance
May it shower down
upon us
like
baby
peony
petals.
I am brave
I tell him the truth.
I need:
Replacement Buddhas...
The secret of the spoon...
which although they do not exist in reality
seem to do so.
--I thought I could be his nurse
& heart & soul
and I see he is the leader
I look at him emotionally
sexually...
Deer Lady
is dressed in human clothes
Someone wants to make love to her.
She kisses him
In the dark
the spotlight shows the passionate couple
in a yabyum embrace. She is the rustle of
the top most branches and the sigh of
new green grasses.
His eyes they are the same
he has been here for three
thousand years.
"I see the unicorn before me"
thinks she
an excitement
from the position of his body
he is poised as if to make
balance
in the universe.
For how long we sit
in quiet
no speech
creates a
tie
between us
for I am young & yet
I know what I am doing.
(His world is slippery to hold on to)
Heaven
explodes the walls
against the pattern of fleur-de
-lis and marigolds
And seasons spring
and fall.
Soft as
a throw of silk
she said, perhaps
I dreamed it all.
the length & breadth
of all that chasing
&
how Homer dislikes Paris
sneaking through his home
He has little rival
and lets no one know.
The real earth
moves and falls away into pieces
in the north.
I am mortal.
You dream of me
a deeper forest I came from
running for
the center where you look too.
A jeweled tree poet's tree
I look around at the shimmering
energy
from things that seem as symbols.
I am curious
for what you can bring
from the tree.
You called to the words
and the waters went up in mist
then the soft earth came to sight.
We shall circle here
singing for the evening star.
*
"O what can a poor boy do"
BE AS FIRM AND RESOLUTE
IN ACTION AS ABLE.
The action by which s/he sustains creation
is the same as that by which s/he originally created.
Tho
one cannot so well learn a thing
when it has been learned from others
as when one has discovered it himself.
*
Time is moving out from under us
Who are we
Who are we
violet of memory's flat plain
we embrace, swallow the sea
walk, past centuries into poetry
form pleasant contemplation of innocence
in lucid suspension sing.
*
Monkey man is leading me by the hand
past lovers so entwined
I levitated
in the most elevated
State of the Union.
And back to the body
where I was born:
pink tips that are fingers
eyes sparkling
heart-shaped bottom...
I love her
and him.
I invoke the moon;
it's the best I can find.
Can you see you're it
Oh Moon
he makes love to you
a life time. Plays
to as many people as he can...
*
Who am, was, I?
All of it, all of it.
I am here at 3
now it seems I lead.
A lady in white
bathed by my own silver light.
*
FATHER TIME
& MOTHER EARTH
thought about all of you last night
and a great blue heron came up
and the other animals came close
all gods in the human breast.
O don't let me swoon
You intercepted my vibes.
that's fine.
Now you have a sweet tone.
tree holes.
boobies.
smooth countenance mind transmission.
*
I am a writer.
I will not dwell
on the question
of why.
Psyche is not a personal
but a world experience.
I am in a bed in a hotel
having a talk with consciousness.
OK, I am actually in bed with _____.
I exist outside time &
this world I called my own
opens out.
Sometimes I lay in the bathtub chanting OM
I know I don't suffer more than anyone
I read Cixous, Jung
The feminine spirit infuses these words.
*
I sing:
You showed me the meadow
and milkwood and silkwood
and you would if I would
because threads that are golden
don't break easily.
Joanne sings:
Me is memory
take me out
May your flowery face
bow
In the teeny
trembling world.
*
I am that which god wants
brilliant quince in bloom
we meet once again, friend.
*
Electric enlightenment
is in
your sexy heaven
which I am inventing
O My Big One
(we make it up as we go along)
(& aren't you glad I don't write Cock Poems?
as suggested
by Robert Duncan)
Come back!
Your presence is an aphrodisiac.
*
I know this is a detective story
of passions, blood stuff
around which our lives crank
in a friendly sinuous manner
sultry as a New York poetry trip
where we danced all night under
electric candlelight. Worthy
to uncover the hidden home
of the Dakini, wash, bathe, lay
papers with meaning aside.
Not yet tho. The
rare jewel, the rare jewel
caught in the net invisible.
I must be transplanting thoughtforms,
like transplanting poppies,
I am noting your strong ripply
vibration aura
and making you a new flower
from my inner world.
--Ann Arbor to Pennsylvania
May 11, 2008
There were:
luques grilled shrimp manchego cheese
poetry Riesling The Kinks
couscous Absinthe* Beethoven
art by Joe Brainard yellow tulips tiny purple flowers
trees in blossom scent of ginger, scent of purple tiny portrait of Jim Carroll
Extraordinary Machine omelets fresh parsley, oregano
Red Renunculous Redbud, Crabapple, Dogwood Spider Chrysanthemum
Arvo Part "In the Sprintime of His Voodoo" peppermint & lavender soaps
Oysters! Pelegrino blackberries, passionfruit tiny photo of an angel
"love the one you're with" earrings made of crushed Roman glass
"you go back Jack/ do it again/ we're turning round and round..."
people of all nationalities many flashing cameras (Andrea's med-school graduation)
and finally there was Rilke:
XXI
Spring is back. The earth
is like a child, the poem white
much, o much.....for the trouble
of long learning, she wins the prize.
Her teacher was strict. We liked
the white in the beard of the old man.
Now, when we ask what the green
and the blue mean, she knows, she knows!
Earth, you lucky one, play
with the children. We want to
catch you, happy earth.
The happiest succeeds.
O, what her teacher taught her
and what stands in roots and
long difficult stems: she sings it, she sings!
*Absinthe is now legal in two places in the United States: Ann Arbor and California.
You are happy, happy, but I am a thousand times happier!
Whom have I encountered in my dream last night? Only I know.
I am so happy, I cannot be contained in the world;
But like a spirit, I am hidden from the eyes of the world.
If the foot of the trees were not tied to earth, they would be pursuing me;
For I have blossomed so much, I am the envy of the gardens.
--Rumi