Poetic search

Somehow poetry and the search for a more just order on earth are not contradictory, and rational thought and dreams are not contradictory, and there may be something necessary, as well as ridiculous, in the odd activity of racing back and forth on the bridge between reality and the world of dreams.

WALLACE SHAWN from his “Introduction” to Essays.

Taking notice.

Yes, the conditions in the world are terrible, certainly—but I still could feel that the topic could be discussed in a leisurely manner. When one hasn’t noticed that it’s one’s own boot that’s standing on the suffering person’s neck, one can be calmly sympathetic to the suffering person and hope that over time things will work out well for them.

WALLACE SHAWN from his “Introduction” to Essays.

Photo: Vidiot

True (2)

Samuel Beckett was often accused of being a pessimist, a charge he denied. In fact, he argued, those who are labelled pessimists are the true optimists—were it not for their belief that the world, however awful, could be improved, they would never bother raising the issues. Optimists, he further argued, are the true pessimists in that they’re so convinced the situation is beyond repair, all they can do is pretend there’s nothing wrong with it.

SHALOM AUSLANDER, Foreskin’s Lament

Worthy

“…only he who is willing to give his body for the sake of the world is fit to be entrusted with the world. Only he who can do it with love is worthy of being the steward of the world.”

-Tao Te Ching

Pictured: “ifun” @ dudesnude

Protected: He’s got the whole world…

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“I have a thirst for the divine”*

Every true poem is a spark,
                                           and aspires to the condition of the original fire
Arising out of the emptiness.
It is that same emptiness it wants to reignite.
It is that same engendering it wants to be re-engendered by.**

 

I used to think the power of words was inexhaustible,
That how we said the world
                                                         was how it was, and how it would be.
I used to imagine that word-sway and word-thunder
Would silence the Silence and all that,
That words were the Word,
That language could lead us inexplicably to grace,
As though it were geographical.
I used to think these things when I was young.
                                                                                                   I still do.

 

CHARLES WRIGHT, from Body and Soul

Five poems

Divine

Photo: Joe Dallesandro by Duane Michals, Album 1958-1988. Santa Fe: Twin Palms.

*Wright, Lost Language
**Wright, Body and Soul II

The world has just gotten bigger.

Photo: NYTimes

Swirl.

I’m agnostic. I want the data to inform me. I want to have a classification scheme that illuminates.*

There are millions of objects circling our sun. The nine bodies we’ve called planets are interesting to us because we have thousands of years of lore about them. Maintaining our category of planets says less about the nature of our universe than about our need to imagine walking on spheres other than our own blue one. Planets are interesting not because of what they are but because of who we are and where our dreams are set. This doesn’t mean that planets are without meaning. On the contrary. Our insistence on maintaining the category even though there is no compelling scientific reason to do so exposes a deeper meaning that is becoming more important as realms break free of their categorical tethers and join the swirl of the miscellaneous: How we organize our world reflects not only the world but also our interests, our needs, our dreams.

DAVID WEINBERGER, Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder

*Alan Stern

Footnote to Howl

Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!

The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy!
The nose is holy! The tongue and cock and hand
and asshole holy!

Everything is holy! everybody’s holy! everywhere is
holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman’s an
angel!

The bum’s as holy as the seraphim! the madman is
holy as you my soul are holy!

The typewriter is holy the poem is holy the voice is
holy the hearers are holy the ecstasy is holy!

Holy Peter holy Allen holy Solomon holy Lucien holy
Kerouac holy Huncke holy Burroughs holy Cas-
sady holy the unknown buggered and suffering
beggars holy the hideous human angels!

Holy my mother in the insane asylum! Holy the cocks
of the grandfathers of Kansas!

Holy the groaning saxophone! Holy the bop
apocalypse! Holy the jazzbands marijuana
hipsters peace & junk & drums!

Holy the solitudes of skyscrapers and pavements! Holy
the cafeterias filled with the millions! Holy the
mysterious rivers of tears under the streets!

Holy the lone juggernaut! Holy the vast lamb of the
middle class! Holy the crazy shepherds of rebell-
ion! Who digs Los Angeles IS Los Angeles!

Holy New York Holy San Francisco Holy Peoria &
Seattle Holy Paris Holy Tangiers Holy Moscow
Holy Istanbul!

Holy time in eternity holy eternity in time holy the
clocks in space holy the fourth dimension holy
the fifth International holy the Angel in Moloch!

Holy the sea holy the desert holy the railroad holy the
locomotive holy the visions holy the hallucina-
tions holy the miracles holy the eyeball holy the
abyss!

Holy forgiveness! mercy! charity! faith! Holy! Ours!
bodies! suffering! magnanimity!

Holy the supernatural extra brilliant intelligent
kindness of the soul!

ALLEN GINSBERG, Howl and Other Poems (1956, City Lights Books)

America