Saturday, November 6, 2010
October 2010
Selection #1
Tathagata
comes creeping
like morning dew
night light half lit
burning into my sight -
- ancient kingdoms -
flight above head -
geese or ghost?
--Joyce Pointe
Selection #'s 2 & 3
Selection #2
Sleeping soundly
Peeling carrots
Walking the dog
Out there, earth strains,
Faults seek release;
An asteroid approaches;
Or a madman with a bomb.
In here, a lapse of memory;
A cancer cell divides;
A mindless moment,
Steps missed on the stair.
Walk the dog
Peel carrots
Soundly sleep
--Patrick Mizelle
Monkey wants a room on the moon
Far from the fray of radio,
Of Facebook, phone, HDTV; on, on
Beyond a lounge chair and a lemonade;
Past nougats, and past nightingales,
Past prisoners in secret jails.
Monkey wants the sun to shine,
To light that room up all the time.
--Patrick Mizelle
Selection #4
Selection #4
Just initials.
The person
(age, gender, I've no idea)
wrote
of the death of literature
and the very same week
a bold young woman
wrote me jauntily
she was "trying to wean her professor off
Shakespeare," whom she described as irrelevant.
She wanted to talk to me,
but I thought she should talk to Initial-Being:
"Literature died a long time ago,
along with any concept of a shared
cultural identity
over the nature of art."
True I am way too interested
in hiding out in static cultural artifacts
but if the I assume young people are right
there's nothing I can do about
the state of affairs. Anyway.
I told her, "Define relevant." And, "Beware of your demand
for 'new' - it might not exist."
Then again it might.
I wanted to tell her, "You can't judge a thing worthless
until you know its worth," but I thought
that might be pushing it.
I wanted to call her a young and very arrogant little
snot, but just as Mr. or Ms. Initial warned me,
I have no tribe behind me
and nobody does.
Splintered shards of mirror
lie on the floor
reflecting the ceiling
at crazy angles.
--Deanna Hopper
Selection #5
Selection #5
The Hungry Ghost Realm
On branches impaled they flutter in the wind
Above the dirt like prayer flags;
And in the open sewer she’s splashing in
They float serene and lotus-like: the bags,
The little, plastic bags that choke this slum.
But joy, through dusk, is pulsing on her who sits
Erect on the cracked cement, all still: some
Child bodhisattva ardor hits
To enter the world, the liquid world in light
That pours out from the shimmering TV set
To play upon her shining eyes. She'll fight
Monk-like this life to get there yet
Never will. Better if she awoke
To the earth the little plastic bags choke.
-- Dan D'Agostino
