a poem about parenthood

Still Life with Peeved Madonna

by Adrian Blevins

It’s clear I’m standing on the Isle of Motherdom
given these three children hanging off my arms and feet

weighing the weight of the planet, at least.
The children look like dime-store bric-a-brac

 

since all that swings will squarely star-sparkle,
but more like missiles in size and expulsion intent.

 

They’re asking how cold is the water, to which I say I don’t know.
They’re asking could they have some macaroni & cheese

 

to which I say I’m occupied hating this line, hush, now hush.
They’re asking how far is it inland & do the natives dance there

 

& can they go & get some confetti & snort or inject it
to which I say years ago I could answer your questions

 

but look at those clouds, I think that’s a cyclone
to which they say, fuck you, Mom, you’re always so paranoid

 

to which I say, fuck you, too, you remind me of lizards,
were you birthed in an outhouse by an ogre or a loon?

 

From The Brass Girl Brouhaha

 

Same Poem In Ten Languages

the poem: NO MEIO DO CAMINHO by the brazillian poet Carlos Drummond de Andrade read by many different people in many different languages. AND THEY ALL ARE AMAZING TO LISTEN TO. this is the art of translation, warts and all.

Borges and Poetry. Harvard 1967.

Borges lecture at Harvard. It is something to behold beyond the video which is sort of whatever or somesuch.

Poem For Friday

I can think of nothing better than this Wallace Stevens poem for a Friday, in the spring, in Maine..

 

A Rabbit as King of the Ghosts

by Wallace Stevens

 

The difficulty to think at the end of day,
When the shapeless shadow covers the sun
And nothing is left except light on your fur—

There was the cat slopping its milk all day,
Fat cat, red tongue, green mind, white milk
And August the most peaceful month.

To be, in the grass, in the peacefullest time,
Without that monument of cat,
The cat forgotten on the moon;

And to feel that the light is a rabbit-light
In which everything is meant for you
And nothing need be explained;

Then there is nothing to think of. It comes of itself;
And east rushes west and west rushes down,
No matter. The grass is full

And full of yourself. The trees around are for you,
The whole of the wideness of night is for you,
A self that touches all edges,

You become a self that fills the four corners of night.
The red cat hides away in the fur-light
And there you are humped high, humped up,

You are humped higher and higher, black as stone—
You sit with your head like a carving in space
And the little green cat is a bug in the grass.

 Image:  

K. F. E. VON FREYHOLD FOR HASENBUCH (GERMANY, 1908)

ripped from:  http://50watts.com

Boy in Video Arcade

Boy in Video Arcade, by Larry Levis

 

Some see a lake of fire at the end of it,
Or heaven’s…

View Post

Boy in Video Arcade

Boy in Video Arcade, by Larry Levis

 

Some see a lake of fire at the end of it,
Or heaven’s guesswork, something always to be sketched in.

I see a sullen boy in a video arcade. 
He’s the only one there at this hour, shoulders slightly bent above a machine.
I see the pimples on his chin, the scuffed linoleum on the floor.

I like the close-up, the detail. I like the pointlessness of it, 
And the way it hasn’t imagined an ending to all this yet,

The boy never bothering to look up as the sun comes out
In the late morning, because, Big Deal, the mist evaporating & rising.

So Death blows his little fucking trumpet, Big Deal, says the boy.

I don’t see anything at the end of it except an endlessness,

The beauty parlors, the palm reader’s unlighted sign, the mulberry trees
Fading out before the billboard of the chiropractor.

The lake of fire’s just an oil speck.
I don’t see anything at the end of it, & I suppose that is what is wrong with me,

Among the other things. And it’s slow work, because of all the gauzy light,

It’s hard to pick out anything.

One of my favorite Levis poems.  From the book Elegy.  Well worth getting your hands on as much of Larry Levis’ work as possible.  His poetry is fierce and fearless and freaking beautiful.

 

Art is from a graphic novel Kris Kool (1970) find out more about it here.  Found the image over at 50watts.

call and response: the emails (part II)

yo eastside

bin hitting the tracks,

lookin for fruit, you get me?

found a kiwi.

you know.

hit me back

loco larry

 

 

response  DP:

 

yo boss man,

I dug that pissed post.

World is a fucker.

Fuck back…

 

from a previous post explaining this project:

I sent absurd rhythmic emails to friends, lovers, old people.  Sort of like when poets send each other post cards and then build books out of the correspondences.  They are rarely interesting, these books, but the idea sounds great.  So, I add my own take on uninterestingness:  ”the email postcard correspondence with people the readers don’t know and/or care about, but look at how whip slick jangly we are verbotically.”