A poetic coup d'etat -

peece,
dj

I love this.

"an immigrant in every moment" - that is a gorgeous phrase

Wow, Angelique. This was my first opportunity to read some of your poetry, and now I’m hooked. You have a unique and powerful voice that is also evocative of many of my favorite poets.

“cityscapes ignore the agony
of one fallen bird”

What worlds these two lines alone convey! The industrial indifference to the suffering sensitive, the near invisibility of one gentle creature amidst a monstrously vast and crowded landscape. Cuts to the quick of the heart.

“Large cuts of beef in the butcher shop”

Couldn’t help but think of Rembrandt’s Side of Beef here.

“an immigrant in every moment”

And this calls to mind Eavan Boland’s poems written from the perspective of an immigrant—both her own (e.g., “An Irish Childhood in England: 1951”) and those of imagined others (e.g., “Mise Eire”).

“in the tender, violent awakening
of a world about to be born.”

Chilling, savage beauty. Here’s where I start thinking Flannery O’Connor.

Finally, the whole poem made me immediately think of Wendell Berry’s “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front.” At first, I was going to just excerpt a few lines and then link to the full poem, but as I began reading, it became more and more difficult to choose an excerpt. That first stanza seems especially appropriate considering today’s haunting arrival of the “window in your head”—the unsightly OS ads polluting our creative space.

So I give up. I’m just going to include the whole poem here and hope you’ll forgive me for monopolizing the comments space.

—Melissa


Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
by Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything read-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer,
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion—put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

"Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection"

tracks call to the (........)
You are
Y'all ARE
awesome.

excellent poem.

It makes the post 12D does it not? so many dOmensions to explore, for every commnet, A World :)

peece,
dj

The poetic convergences continue to astound.

((((
....

—Melissa

DJ: My brother of the Ethers - I appreciate the french - so apropo - c'est bon!

consonantsandvowels: Merci, merci!!!

Melissa: You have provided me with so many threads to follow. I confess to being hopelessly unread. James E. pointed out in another poem all the many William Blake-isms / symbols I was spewing forth and I had not read a lick of Blake; it was eerie, particularly as this all occurred the same day Newton was whipping us all into a frenzy regarding the synchronicity of giraFFes (this, from an exchange he had with consonantsandvowels in the latter's post and my Mars/Retrograde poem which referred to the same)...I am so pleased you posted that poem by Berry, who I have not read. Does it bespeak lowly of me, that I write, yet do not read, the works of others (poets, that is?) Although I do love Rilke, some Philip Larkin ('Aubade' in particular), Plath, and Roethke...I am not a complete illiterate, but close. Thank you for the time and energy you put into your comment.

I am travelling for a week or so but have not forgotten that when I return, I wish to look at, and comment on, all of your blogs. Forgive the delay. My life has been rather apocalyptic lately and this may not change any time soon...It is a process of constant "un/covering" (see Red Sky poem and James E. comments).

This is poetry I can understand.

Fantastic!

Angelique,

I looked in my mother's 1941 dictionary...websters collegiate (she never went to college tho she yearned to....)
(previous editions 1916,1925,1931)
& it said:

"revolve": "re + volvere", to roll, turn around...

1. to turn over & over (in the mind)...to reflect upon, to ponder....
2.to cause to go round in an orbit


That was the transitive verb.

Passing over to an object.

There's an intransitive verb meaning, too, of course, as with
alot of our friends,
the verbs...

1. to move in a curved path around a center.
2.To rotate.
3.To recur.

"You say you want a revolution? welllll...y'know....
we all wanna change the world..."

I prefer to revolve around a question mark presently,
but someday I hope to have something solid,
some damn center of gravity
(which after all is just mutual attraction, so they say...)....

Betrayal and defeat I don't personally worry about,
I just take my daily dose when they
tell me to...

Immigrants are always welcome in the Land of the Free
& Easy...I'd like to go there someday
if I can get all my papers in order...
a tender, violent place sounds like
a nice vacation.
Might relieve the ennui a bit....

Infinite solitude & resignation I find
to be a fine cure for doubt...

James

Oh, that wasn't mythos,
that was me.

Angelique,
Eros,

i indeed see yr point. The revolution of the individual human intra-psychic continuum, or
the arena wherein the ego resides,
like a squirmy worm yearning to be reborn,
but fearful of the Big Out There, the outside world,

ja, this is dificil. However, and
there is always always alway
a however in me head,

get used to it...

looking at the socio-economic picture, or the Big Picture as the yo-yos and
the yahoos of the precious written word callit w/o fore or
after-
Thought....

(g-dam it i lost my train of thought...eckscuse me whilst i re-trieve it...ach)
___________________
What kind of other revolutions are there? Well, any kind there is---political, social, economic even i guess tho
i dont presently see how cuz i aint allseeing (ye)

any kind there is (ahem) sayeth I, the Biggest Mouth in the
most polite package there is....

can be fit into yr poem, becuz it is that good a poem,
and tho i give complement s freely and
prhaps some wd say undeservedly,

i dont lie toyou.ever....
______________________
for example, lets go Biggest Picture of All:
fullon spiritual, or some might choose to say,
experiential, or some might choose to say
existential

(i careth not cuz i know what i mean...word s fail, they say...unless: there is some Leibnizian or other kind of Uiversal language, in which case
things would be boring as shit)

________________________________
Beauty.
A world about to be born. Yours. I mean:
the poetess'. There is a difference, i spose...or is there? maybe not....if you are a practicer of Blakean conscious...um...

dictation (see my "resurrecting wm. blake poem/treat-ise)
of the Eternal Realms, like the time Milton came up
his cockney foot & spoke "milton" to him....
then: you, whoever the focal pt of under-standing is,

hear the voices from the Collective, the Oversoul, the collective uncs, theethereal realms, the ...um..."congruent noosphere" (just made htat up on the spot
spot on i hope tho i dont know......
cuz i aint in yr head, tho ia m, ..both, neither...


(re yr head i mean)_____________________

if you are bleak blakean, you thunder.
if you are sweet blakean, you rhapsody.
if you are, prhaps, for diversion.
shakespeare today...Madame Shakes her spear in
a hat i dont know...
a hat of yr choosing ispos unless the hat choice is up to a man,
in which case itll be different than the HAT CHOICE of
a "womanz" (not not not a misspelling.....womanz)

hat= whatever=my pt, which
i now abandon w/
utter abandon &

profound profound ennui...ach

_________

beauty. a revolution in perspective, prhaps
a beautiful thing is a thing that unfolds its beauty w/o
constraint...

infinite solitude? si....
perfect, spot on the spot resignation, si

in polite company prhaps not resignation..prhaps not resign
ie re-sign, ie sign again
(?) (what the f am i saying...i dunno...how should littl i know?)

i could...heh...
go for hrs & hrs & ..hrs...

talking! i mean... (distracted by a vagrant thought here)

________________________
back, but you dont know how much later
kinda like
me w/ you re
dis-
appear
ing


take yr damn time. it really doesnt matter
much anymore, does it?

after all the trouble littl james
has kicked up..

ha

Jamesa

i have always looked straight into the Sun....it is bad for you.....but, alot of things are, like marijuana, cigarettes, etc....

then i learned it wasnt a good idea to do, so i kept doing it of course.

i find it ...strengthens my vision......makes me smile..

OS

Angelique,

I guess you were probably thinking of some kind of spiritual revolution. Not political. A soft revolution. The softer the better, fafr as I am concerned.

So, well, I guess i've tried in my small way to star one. I too have always been a (terrified,huddling) immigrant in every microinstant. I am interested in immigrating to Xanadu, but

they got such damn difficult- to- understand rules & regs. Or maybe THEY dont, but it just looks like that to me. The simplest things are always the most complicated. Like total spiritual enlightenment. NOW! Ach, too damn impatient I am, always.

What do you suppose tender violence would feel like to inflict? To receive?

Well, guess that dman rabbit that ran,rabbit,ran got caught up to. Too bad. Had to happen. He shoulda just stopped running. I mused on how, exactly, his pain was minimized by seeing the big animals in a similar predicament. I guess he just aint so lonely anymore, perhaps?

The chunks of beef are delicious looking, but they say meat is bad for your heart. Protein is something we need, though. I pass through the slaughterhouse everyday. I wipe the blood off the floor, squeeze my rags into a big golden bucket,

and take it home, ...um, the bucket i mean. Then i get out my vegetables, mix up a nice blend in my BLENDER, throw as much blood as I feel able to gag down in, and slurp it down...

or sip it. The mangos usually counteract the coppery taste...

Some say all betrayal is self betrayal. I as a bipolar case say: yes & no. It is sometimes that we betray ourselves by not yet being able to trust our hearts. Or our godgiven intellect. Or our "super-(uber)intellect," ...Hegel's "REASON"....that sees all the angles & associations at once in an integrative swwwooooopp of the menatl energy.....

so we betray ourselves by not having all the facts....defeat follows like a hare drummer boy...(?) (just saw that picture in my poor frazzled head, and my dear, it is f-ing frazzled today)

are you the poor bird shot down? Why would you expect cityfolk to care about the last fluttering gasp of your little birdbody? Every sparrow falls (eck-specially if its shot down by an expert marksman)....

but God watches each one

and He DOES have his favorites, I hear...
James

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." --- George Orwell

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