mcdspot

HOW TO BE A POET
(to remind myself)

Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill-more of each
than you have-inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your work,
doubt their judgment.

Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.

Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.

– Wendell Berry

thanks Brenda!

I am sending you
postcards from a place
where I am not.

We’re not tourists, we’re travelers

a tourist is someone who
thinks about going home the
moment they arrive

whereas a traveler
might not come
back at all.

Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky

Untranslatable Song
by Claudia Reder

“Everyone needs one untranslatable song.”
—-Juarroz

On hearing the striped contralto of guinea fowl,
its mock opera quivers the parsley atop its head–

The song makes its imprint
in the air, making itself felt,
a felt world. Here, there,
the stunned silence
of knowing I will not remember
what I heard;

futures
that will never happen,
a fluidity we cannot achieve
except as a child
creating possibility.

This is the untranslatable song
hidden in the earth.

(via the inimitable motel de moka.)

Everything Is Beautiful from a Distance, and So Are You
by Michael Blumenthal

The young clarinetist, playing Mendelssohn’s Sinfonia #10 in B-minor
in back of the orchestra may be exceedingly beautiful, it’s hard to know
from here, just as I, to her, may be gorgeous myself and the day, in

retrospect, divine, as all the past loves of my life have been, and that boring
evening in County Derry as well, oh yes, they are all beautiful, now, when
I look back upon them, as, no doubt, my life will seem from some calm

and beautiful distance, some rapturous perspective, but here in the here
and now let me say that it’s midafternoon, my lover is on her way over,
it’s been a long chilly day in Budapest, what I thought was a herniated disc

is not, after all, a herniated disc, Mozart’s 250th is behind us, as is the 60th
anniversary of Bartók’s death, and it is only James Taylor on the stereo—
sweet, sentimental James—and I don’t give a damn what anyone thinks

of my taste or emotional proclivities, I only know it’s Thursday and in
an hour I’ll be making love, and, looking up at me from the pillow,
my lover may or may not consider me beautiful, or even desirable,

but the deed will be already done, the evening before us, there
are roasted red peppers and goat cheese in the refrigerator, I’ll be
as far from death as a man can be, oh can you imagine that?

thanks, MP

“Dissertations are long and boring. By contrast, everybody likes haiku. So why not write your dissertation as a haiku?” See the entries here.

Sharon just sent me the best link: William Shatner interpreting Palin’s resignation speech as poetry.

Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Also check out this quality New York Times article on Mary Oliver.

Beware : Do Not Read This Poem
by Ishmael Reed

tonite, thriller was
abt an ol woman , so vain she
surrounded herself w/
       many mirrors

it got so bad that finally she
locked herself indoors & her
whole life became the
      mirrors

one day the villagers broke
into her house, but she was too
swift for them . she disappeared
      into a mirror
each tenant who bought the house
after that , lost a loved one to
      the ol woman in the mirror :
      first a little girl
      then a young woman
      then the young woman/s husband

the hunger of this poem is legendary
it has taken in many victims
back off from this poem
it has drawn in yr feet
back off from this poem
it has drawn in yr legs

back off from this poem
it is a greedy mirror
you are into the poem . from
      the waist down
nobody can hear you can they ?
this poem has had you up to here
      belch
this poem aint got no manners
you cant call out frm this poem
relax now & go w/ this poem

move & roll on to this poem
do not resist this poem
this poem has yr eyes
this poem has his head
this poem has his arms
this poem has his fingers
this poem has his fingertips

this poem is the reader & the
reader this poem

statistic : the us bureau of missing persons re-
      ports that in 1968 over 100,000 people
      disappeared leaving no solid clues
      nor trace       only
a space       in the lives of their friends

The Cinquain is a haiku-inspired form invented by the American poet Adelaide Crapsey utilizing an increasing syllable count in the first four lines, namely two in the first, four in the second, six in the third, and eight in the fourth, before returning to two syllables on the last line. Some examples can be found here:

under
the hedge a
welcome haven—
down my neck raindroplets
trickle

dank fog
envelops
a bonfire night—
the party becomes a
damp squib

a light
frost whitens
the frozen verge—
inert below,summer
awaits

Country Fair
by Charles Simic

If you didn’t see the six-legged dog,
It doesn’t matter.
We did, and he mostly lay in the corner.
As for the extra legs,

One got used to them quickly
And thought of other things.
Like, what a cold, dark night
To be out at the fair.

Then the keeper threw a stick
And the dog went after it
On four legs, the other two flapping behind,
Which made one girl shriek with laughter.

She was drunk and so was the man
Who kept kissing her neck.
The dog got the stick and looked back at us.
And that was the whole show.

Farm Implements and Rutabagas in a Landscape
by John Ashbery

The first of the undecoded messages read: “Popeye sits
      in thunder,
Unthought of. From that shoebox of an apartment,
From livid curtain’s hue, a tangram emerges: a country.”
Meanwhile the Sea Hag was relaxing on a green couch: “How
      pleasant
To spend one’s vacation en la casa de Popeye,” she
       scratched
Her cleft chin’s solitary hair. She remembered spinach

And was going to ask Wimpy if he had bought any spinach.
“M’love,” he intercepted, “the plains are decked out
       in thunder
Today, and it shall be as you wish.” He scratched
The part of his head under his hat. The apartment
Seemed to grow smaller. “But what if no pleasant
Inspiration plunge us now to the stars? For this is my
      country.”

Suddenly they remembered how it was cheaper in the country.
Wimpy was thoughtfully cutting open a number 2 can of spinach
When the door opened and Swee’pea crept in. “How pleasant!”
But Swee’pea looked morose. A note was pinned to his bib.
       “Thunder
And tears are unavailing,” it read. “Henceforth shall
       Popeye’s apartment
Be but remembered space, toxic or salubrious, whole or
      scratched.”

Olive came hurtling through the window; its geraniums scratched
Her long thigh. “I have news!” she gasped. “Popeye, forced as
       you know to flee the country
One musty gusty evening, by the schemes of his wizened,
      duplicate father, jealous of the apartment
And all that it contains, myself and spinach
In particular, heaves bolts of loving thunder
At his own astonished becoming, rupturing the pleasant

Arpeggio of our years. No more shall pleasant
Rays of the sun refresh your sense of growing old, nor the
      scratched
Tree-trunks and mossy foliage, only immaculate darkness and
      thunder.”
She grabbed Swee’pea. “I’m taking the brat to the country.”
“But you can’t do that–he hasn’t even finished his spinach,”
Urged the Sea Hag, looking fearfully around at the apartment.

But Olive was already out of earshot. Now the apartment
Succumbed to a strange new hush. “Actually it’s quite pleasant
Here,” thought the Sea Hag. “If this is all we need fear from
       spinach
Then I don’t mind so much. Perhaps we could invite Alice the Goon
     over”–she scratched
One dug pensively–”but Wimpy is such a country
Bumpkin, always burping like that.” Minute at first, the thunder

Soon filled the apartment. It was domestic thunder,
The color of spinach. Popeye chuckled and scratched
His balls: it sure was pleasant to spend a day in the country.

(This poem may seem, and indeed it is, strange. It is a sestina, using different patterns of the same words at the end of each line. I love this stuff.)

Ode to Spot

by Star Trek’s Data

Felis catus is your taxonomic nomenclature,
An endothermic quadruped, carnivorous by nature;
Your visual, olfactory, and auditory senses
Contribute to your hunting skills and natural defenses.

I find myself intrigued by your subvocal oscillations,
A singular development of cat communications
That obviates your basic hedonistic predilection
For a rhythmic stroking of your fur to demonstrate affection.

A tail is quite essential for your acrobatic talents;
You would not be so agile if you lacked its counterbalance.
And when not being utilized to aid in locomotion,
It often serves to illustrate the state of your emotion.

O Spot, the complex levels of behavior you display
Connote a fairly well-developed cognitive array.
And though you are not sentient, Spot, and do not comprehend,
I nonetheless consider you a true and valued friend.

City That Does Not Sleep
by Federico García Lorca
Translated by Robert Bly

In the sky there is nobody asleep. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is asleep.
The creatures of the moon sniff and prowl about their cabins.
The living iguanas will come and bite the men who do not dream,
and the man who rushes out with his spirit broken will meet on the street corner
the unbelievable alligator quiet beneath the tender protest of the stars.

Nobody is asleep on earth. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is asleep.
In a graveyard far off there is a corpse
who has moaned for three years
because of a dry countryside on his knee;
and that boy they buried this morning cried so much
it was necessary to call out the dogs to keep him quiet.

Life is not a dream. Careful! Careful! Careful!
We fall down the stairs in order to eat the moist earth
or we climb to the knife edge of the snow with the voices of the dead dahlias.
But forgetfulness does not exist, dreams do not exist;
flesh exists. Kisses tie our mouths
in a thicket of new veins,
and whoever his pain pains will feel that pain forever
and whoever is afraid of death will carry it on his shoulders.

One day
the horses will live in the saloons
and the enraged ants
will throw themselves on the yellow skies that take refuge in the
eyes of cows.

Another day
we will watch the preserved butterflies rise from the dead
and still walking through a country of gray sponges and silent boats
we will watch our ring flash and roses spring from our tongue.
Careful! Be careful! Be careful!
The men who still have marks of the claw and the thunderstorm,
and that boy who cries because he has never heard of the invention of the bridge,
or that dead man who possesses now only his head and a shoe,
we must carry them to the wall where the iguanas and the snakes are waiting,
where the bear’s teeth are waiting,
where the mummified hand of the boy is waiting,
and the hair of the camel stands on end with a violent blue shudder.

Nobody is sleeping in the sky. Nobody, nobody.
Nobody is sleeping.
If someone does close his eyes,
a whip, boys, a whip!
Let there be a landscape of open eyes
and bitter wounds on fire.
No one is sleeping in this world. No one, no one.
I have said it before.

No one is sleeping.
But if someone grows too much moss on his temples during the night,
open the stage trapdoors so he can see in the moonlight
the lying goblets, and the poison, and the skull of the theaters.

A BINARY LOVE STORY

by alishahnovin

I merged my car in front of her,
A beautiful “her,”
splendid and intricate
but a “her” with whom,
I could not communicate.

I set my rear-wiper to wave hello.
Alas, perhaps it was the rain,
or because my wave was boring -
yet my windshield-wiper-wave, it seemed,
my angel was ignoring.

I tapped firmly upon my breaks -
like the delicate, steady feet,
pressing grapes in a French winery.
I whispered her sweet nothings,
in loving Break-light Binary.

A response came from her horn,
sounding strangely unimpressed,
annoyed, and undelighted.
A honking horn to inform:
My love was unrequited.

Though I stopped my break taps,
her horn still persisted.
Speeding down the road,
her blasts, both short and long,
her honking in Morse code.

Yet, Morse was not my forté,
and the message went undecoded,
And so, in vain, I replied.
Resuming my binary breaking,
my sweet nothings were retried.

Racing down the highway,
blinking binary breaks,
honkings, short and long.
and my heavy beating heart,
beating out this strange love song,

Pulling me from the wreckage,
I knew not what to say,
So peculiar was my story
of a beautiful Morse code girl,
who died in a flame of glory.

To Mr. Elkin
by Bernadette Mayer

Daily as the lazy lily
the silly daisy let’s be
while we drink the wine
stronger than the dock
on which we recline
swimming alone mid-week
not enough paid work
to have a car to get here
or there with, enough
wherewithal to be
the subjects of your generosity
we return to you our views
tenants of this particular nature
as news in poems and lines
novels similar to building
a cabin or even buying something
our occupation being seeing
when no one else is around
each productive cloud clearly
then naming them & at night
when the kids have gone to sleep
studying like everyone love’s arcs
death’s vines & the wines with a supper
of something like free clouds found
to give strength and pleasure
to us and everyone else around.

By Sam Walter Foss, and quoted in its entirety in Justice Jones’s opinion in Lorence v. Hospital Board of Morgan County, 294 Ala. 614, 618-19, 320 So.2d 631 (1975) (!):

“One day through the primeval wood

A calf walked home, as good calves should;

But left a trail all bent askew,

A crooked trail, as all calves do.

Since then, three hundred years have fled,

And, I infer, the calf is dead.

But still he left behind this trail,

And thereby hangs my moral tale.

The trail was taken up next day

By a lone dog that passed that way;

And then a wise bell-wether sheep

Pursued the trail o’er vale and steep,

And drew the flock behind him, too,

As good bell-wethers always do.

So from that day, o’er hill and glade,

Through those old woods a path was made,

And many men wound in and out,

And bent and turned and dodged about,

And uttered words of righteous wrath,

Because ’twas such a crooked path;

But still they followed-do not laugh-

The first migrations of that calf,

And through this winding woodway stalked

Because he wabbled when he walked.

This forest path became a lane,

That bent and turned and turned again;

This crooked lane became a road,

Where many a poor horse, with his load,

Toiled on, beneath the burning sun,

And traveled some three miles in one.

And thus a century and a half

They trod the footsteps of that calf.

The years passed on with swiftness fleet,

The road became a village street,

And this, before men were aware,

A city’s crowded thoroughfare.

And soon the central street was this

Of a renowned metropolis.

And men two centuries and a half

Trod the footsteps of that calf.

Each day a hundred thousand rout

Followed the zigzag calf about;

And o’er his crooked journey went

The traffic of a continent.

A hundred thousand men were led

By one calf near three centuries dead.

They followed still his crooked way,

And lost one hundred years a day;

For thus such reverence is lent

To well-established precedent.

A moral lesson this might teach,

Were I ordained and called to preach.

For men are prone to go it blind

Along the calf-paths of the mind,

And toil away from sun to sun

To do what other men have done.

They follow in the beaten track,

And out and in, and forth and back,

And still their devious course pursue

To keep the path that others do.

But how the wise old wood-gods laugh,

Who saw the first primeval calf!

Ah! many things this tale might teach;

But I am not ordained to preach.”

All Their Stanzas Look Alike
by Thomas Sayers Ellis

All their fences
   All their prisons
All their exercises
   All their agendas
All their stanzas look alike
   All their metaphors
All their bookstores
   All their plantations
All their assassinations
   All their stanzas look alike
All their rejection letters
   All their letters to the editor
All their arts and letters
   All their letters of recommendation
All their stanzas look alike
   All their sexy coverage
All their literary journals
   All their car commercials
All their bribe-spiked blurbs
   All their stanzas look alike
All their favorite writers
   All their writing programs
All their visiting writers
   All their writers-in-residence
All their stanzas look alike
   All their third worlds
All their world series
   All their serial killers
All their killing fields
   All their stanzas look alike
All their state grants
   All their tenure tracks
All their artist colonies
   All their core faculties
All their stanzas look alike
   All their Selected Collecteds
All their Oxford Nortons
   All their Academy Societies
All their Oprah Vendlers
   All their stanzas look alike
All their haloed holocausts
   All their coy hertero couplets
All their hollow haloed causes
   All their tone-deaf tercets
All their stanzas look alike
   All their table of contents
All their Poet Laureates
   All their Ku Klux classics
All their Supreme Court justices
   Except one, except one
Exceptional one. Exceptional or not,
   One is not enough.
All their stanzas look alike,
   Even this, after publication,
Might look alike. Disproves
   My stereo types.

I Would Remain by Night with You
by Joanna Klink

I would remain by night with you
who, having held me once, wrapped everything I knew
into my sleeping body’s hold and held fast and stayed.
You shuttled in sleep against me and away, not sleeping,
beached and exhausted by wine and rushes from
another life whose body my body meant to alter.
But I am wayfaring and recently wrecked;
I understand the cost of pulling free from what once loved you.
I would remain by night with you, if the night is clear enough
to see by, and the wind light enough to draw the stars
in the skin’s skies open, and the waves you sensed
through the dress in the wind are real, and only mine.

Praise this world, Rilke says, the jerk.
We’d stay up all night. Every angel’s
berserk. Hell, if you slit monkeys
for a living, you’d pray to me, too.
I’m not so forgiving. I’m rubber, you’re glue.

That elk is such a dick. He’s a space tree
making a ski and a little foam chiropractor.
I set the controls, I pioneer
the seeding of the ionosphere.
I translate the Bible into velociraptor.

In front of Best Buy, the Tibetans are released,
but where’s the whale on stilts that we were promised?
I fight the comets, lick the moon,
pave its lonely streets.
The sandhill cranes make brains look easy.

I go by many names: Buju Banton,
Camel Light, the New York Times.
Point being, rickshaws in Scranton.
I have few legs. I sleep on meat.
I’d eat your bra—point being—in a heartbeat.

– Michael Robbins

You are aesthetically pleasing,

the reason for which I first noticed in you.

And later I found your personality equally pleasing.

I also noted your chest to waist ratio is suitable for birthing.

Therefore, I think you should live in my house.

by alishahnovin.