Baskets

The best are speckled with a color, like songs
you hum because the words are unremembered.
They say, hand me an apple though I do not
need it, then in the cold months when I need it
you will hand me an apple again. Pretend
you are sitting on the ground and a bird looks
out at you from the low part of a pine.
The color enters your basket while you look
at him. What has he said? What have you said?
What you never said is safe with another.
But how will you reach me when I am left
so far behind? I cannot weave. I cannot fly.

poem by Laura Jensen from Bad Boats,
The Ecco Press, New York, NY 1977.

Posted by Karyn

WPWC Class: Check your emails!

Check your emails if you are in Write Poetry Right Now! I have to miss class Wednesday--tragedy. But we can reschedule class; particularly, I am interested in doing a Tuesday night class if we can. Please let me know what your schedule will allow. Otherwise, I'd like to push class to Friday evening or Sunday evening.

-Russell

A STOGIE

A friend of mine told me

I should write

a poem

about harelips.

The first thing

that comes to mind

is that a deep harelip

might be good

for holding

a cigarette

or cigar.

I look it up

online, it said

1 in 700

infants are born

with harelips--

that's a lot

of fucked up

baby faces.

~ Hans Lutenegger (04/24/10)

CHOPIN BUKOWSKI by Charles Bukowski

this is my piano.

the phone rings and people ask,

what are you doing? how about

getting drunk with us?

and I say,

I’m at my piano.

what?

I’m at my piano.

I hang up.

people need me. I fill

them. if they can’t see me

for a while they get desperate, they get

sick.

But if I see them too often

I get sick. it’s hard to feed

without getting fed.

my piano says things back to

me.

sometimes the things are

scrambled and not very good.

other times

I get as good and lucky as

Chopin.

sometimes I get out of practice

out of tune. that’s

all right.

I can sit down and vomit on the

keys

but it’s my

vomit.

it’s better than sitting in a room

with 3 or 4 people and

their pianos.

this is my piano

and it is better than theirs.

(from Love is a Dog from Hell, 1977)

Certainly my favorite Bukowski poem. The book's title is also one of my favorite titles of any book.

Posted by Hans

"Russell Jaffe is going to read some fiction...poetry!"

Here is the power of video on the blog. For Write Poetry Right Now class: I signed in and then went to Youtube, found this video, went to the Edit Html tab, and posted this in it. Easy! Fun!

For everyone else, enjoy this VIDEO TEKNOLOGIE

Prairie Lights readings

http://www.prairielights.com/live

Ben Dollar is on April 27 at 7 pm.

John Ashbery

After reading the packet of poems everyone in class sent me, I've determined that many of them seem connected to/influenced by the New York School poets. With motifs and styles that remind me of some of the New York School's most famous names--names like Ashbery, O'Hara, Koch, Notley--I've decided to start posting some of their stuff up on the blog. Enjoy!

John Ashbery

Kenneth Koch

LITANY

by Karyn Hempel

Is it you I often see
riding on your own raft of poems,
the waves like answers
to questions you've never asked?
Are you lost−do you just
pretend to know where you are?
Will you put down an anchor?
Aren't you afraid you would be
carried out to sea, afraid
you could never come back?

Will you always wait until
all the other boats come in
before you come in too?
How late will you be−how long?
Will you wait until dark
and work that into your poem, too?
Will you wait until the tide
pushes you onto the beach?
Will you look up in time
to see me leave?

(kh August 1987)
(yes, an old poem)

Posted by Karyn

ANTHRACITE COUNTRY

--Jay Parini

The culm dump burns all night,
unnaturally blue, and well below heaven.
It smolders like moments almost forgotten,
the time when you said what you meant
too plainly and ruined your chance of love.

Refusing to dwindle, fed from within
like men rejected for nothing specific,
it lingers at the edge of town, unwatched
by anyone living near. The smell now
passes for nature. It would be missed.

Rich earth-wound, glimmering
rubble of an age when men
dug marrow from the land's dark spine,
it resists all healing.
Its luminous hump cries comfortable pain.

(Poem from the book of the same title, Anthracite Country by Jay Parini, Random House Inc. New York, 1982)

Posted by Karyn

CHARLES SIMIC by Charles Simic

Charles Simic is a sentence.
A sentence has a beginning and an end.

Is he a simple or compound sentence?
It depends on the weather,
It depends on the stars above.

What is the subject of the sentence?
The subject is your beloved Charles Simic.

How many verbs are there in the sentence?
Eating, sleeping, and fucking are some of its verbs.

What is the object of the sentence?
The object, my little ones,
Is not yet in sight.

And who is writing this awkward sentence?
A blackmailer, a girl in love,
And an applicant for a job.

Will they end with a period or a question mark?
They’ll end with an exclamation point and an ink spot.

(from Return to a Place Lit by a Glass of Milk, 1974)

An all-time favorite.

Posted by Hans.

LAST THINGS LAST by Paul Klee

In the heart's centre
the only prayers
are steps
receding

undated

(from Some Poems, translated by Anselm Hollo, Scorpion Press, 1962)

Posted by Hans.

CAUGHT by Paul Klee

Caught in a room.
Great peril.
No exit.

But there: a window: open: launch
Yourself -- I am flying
Free

But it is raining
A drizzle
It is raining, a drizzle
It is raining
raining . . .
raining . . .

1926

(from Some Poems, translated by Anselm Hollo, Scorpion Press, 1962)

Posted by Hans.

POEM by Paul Klee

Water
Waves on the water
A boat on the waves
On the boat-deck, a woman
On the woman, a man.

1903

(from Some Poems, translated by Anselm Hollo, Scorpion Press, 1962)

Posted by Hans.

THE TWO MOUNTAINS by Paul Klee

A reign of light
clarity on two mountains:

the mountain of animals
the mountain of gods.

But between them the dusky
valley of men.

When
sometimes, one of them
looks up
he is gripped
by foreboding
by unquenchable longings, he
who knows
he knows not, longing
for them who know not
they know not
and for them who know that they know.

1903

(from Some Poems, translated by Anselm Hollo, Scorpion Press, 1962)

Posted by Hans.

ONLY MAN by D.H. Lawrence

Only man can fall from God
Only man.

No animal, no beast nor creeping thing
no cobra nor hyaena nor scorpion nor hideous white ant
can slip entirely through the fingers of the hands of god
into the abyss of self-knowledge,
knowledge of the self-apart-from-god.

For the knowledge of the self-apart-from-God
is an abyss down which the soul can slip
writhing and twisting in all the revolutions
of the unfinished plunge
of self-awareness, now apart from God, falling
fathomless, fathomless, self-consciousness wriggling
writhing deeper and deeper in all the minutiae of self-knowledge,
downards, exhaustive,
yet never, never coming to the bottom, for there is no bottom;
zigzagging down like the fizzle from a finished rocket
the frizzling falling fire that cannot go out, dropping wearily,
neither can it reach the depth
for the depth is bottomless,
so it wriggles its way even further down, further down
at last in sheer horror of not being able to leave off
knowing itself, knowing itself apart from God, falling.

(from Last Poems, 1932)

Posted by Hans.

SELF-PITY by D.H. Lawrence

I NEVER saw a wild thing
sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
without ever having felt sorry for itself.

(from Pansies, 1929)

Posted by Hans.

FATALITY by D.H. Lawrence

No one, not even God, can put back a leaf on to a tree
once it has fallen off.

And no one, not God nor Christ nor any other
can put back a human life into connection with the living cosmos
once the connection has been broken
and the person has become finally self-centered.

Death alone, through the long processes of disintegration
can melt the detached life back
through the dark Hades at the roots of the tree
into the circulating sap, once more, of the tree of life.

(from Nettles, 1930)

Posted by Hans.

RELATIVITY by D.H. Lawrence

I like relativity and quantum theories
because I don't understand them
and they make me feel as if space shifted about like a swan that
can't settle,
refusing to sit still and be measured;
and as if the atom were an impulsive thing
always changing its mind.

(from Pansies: Poems, 1929)

I forgot to mention DH Lawrence when I spoke of my favorite poets.

Posted by Hans.

Russell's ars poetica

Ars Poetica

Like a flower, because of

its softness, because

I left the laundry rumpled

and unfinished--

I'm out of something

always--

shirts,

detergent, and will you believe

me when I say

I stood outside

and cupped my hands together--

there was gravel masking

as dirt clods in the

grass, and only

dandelions grew near the

irrigation ditch; empty spring water.

I told myself if I could write

again without that loss to

overtake me

I would tangle my fingers

in praise--

I have been so lucky

LANDSCAPE

by Laura Jensen

Nothing can oppose the cloud.
Nothing can oppose the gray
that sponges up the rust
off the old grass,
unless it is the stone
of its own color
in the tower
where the windows webbed over
are less open than its padlocked door.

It is not the gray birds
it is not the talons of birds
it is not the weather
or the trees that play dead
or the gray eyes of an old woman
or the children who are watching the ground
for sticks.

See what is coming--
a landscape where we take in turn
what is bleak and empty.
You do not comprehend yourself
until someone steps to you,
grateful you are carrying that lantern.

(from Bad Boats, The Ecco Press, New York, 1977)

The above is one of my favorite poems; regardless of what else I read during the year, I always come back to this one. Enjoy! Karyn

an untitled poem by David Shrigley

GOD MAKES THE FLOWERS GROW

THEY GROW IN SHIT

AND HAVE SEX WITH INSECTS

AND ARE PICKED AND GIVEN TO WHORES

WE MUST NOT

QUESTION GOD'S WAY

WE MUST

JUST ACCEPT

IT.

(from Ants Have Sex in Your Beer, Chronicle Books, US, 2008 / Redstone Press, UK, 2007)

A recent read. Posted by Hans.

LOSING YOUR WAY by David Shrigley

IF YOU FEEL YOU ARE LOSING

YOUR WAY

DON'T BE AFRAID TO ASK

DIRECTIONS

I LOST MY WAY

AND I DIDN'T ASK DIRECTIONS

AND LOOK WHERE IT GOT ME

(from Ants Have Sex in Your Beer, Chronicle Books, US, 2008 / Redstone Press, UK, 2007)

A recent read. Posted by Hans.

Self-Portrait at 28 by David Berman

I know it's a bad title

but I'm giving it to myself as a gift

on a day nearly canceled by sunlight

when the entire hill is approaching

the ideal of Virginia

brochured with goldenrod and loblolly

and I think "at least I have not woken up

with a bloody knife in my hand"

by then having absently wandered

one hundred yards from the house

while still seated in this chair

with my eyes closed.

It is a certain hill.

The one I imagine when I hear the word "hill,"

and if the apocalypse turns out

to be a world-wide nervous breakdown,

if our five billion minds collapse at once,

well I'd call that a surprise ending

and this hill would still be beautiful,

a place I wouldn't mind dying

alone or with you.

I am trying to get at something

and I want to talk very plainly to you

so that we are both comforted by the honesty.

You see there is a window by my desk

I stare out when I am stuck,

though the outdoors has rarely inspired me to write

and I don't know why I keep staring at it.

My childhood hasn't made good material either,

mostly being a mulch of white minutes

with a few stand out moments:

popping tar bubbles on the driveway in the summer,

a certain amount of pride at school

everytime they called it "our sun,"

and playing football when the only play

was "go out long" are what stand out now.

If squeezed for more information

I can remember old clock radios

with flipping metal numbers

and an entree called Surf and Turf.

As a way of getting in touch with my origins,

every night I set the alarm clock

for the time I was born so that waking up

becomes a historical reenactment

and the first thing I do

is take a reading of the day

and try to flow with it,

like when you're riding a mechanical bull

and you strain to learn the pattern quickly

so you don't inadverantly resist it.

II.

I can't remember being born

and no one else can remember it either

even the doctor who I met years later

at a cocktail party.

It's one of the little disappointments

that makes you think about getting away,

going to Holly Springs or Coral Gables

and taking a room on the square

with a landlady whose hands are scored

by disinfectant, telling the people you meet

that you are from Alaska, and listen

to what they have to say about Alaska

until you have learned much more about Alaska

than you ever will about Holly Springs or Coral Gables.

Sometimes I am buying a newspaper

in a strange city and think

"I am about to learn what it's like to live here."

Oftentimes there is a news item

about the complaints of homeowners

who live beside the airport

and I realize that I read an article

on this subject nearly once a year

and always receive the same image:

I am in bed late at night

in my house near the airport

listening to the jets fly overhead,

a strange wife sleeping beside me.

In my mind, the bedroom is an amalgamation

of various cold medicine commercial sets

(there is always a box of tissue on the nightstand).

I know these recurring news articles are clues,

flaws in the design though I haven't figured out

how to string them together yet.

But I've begun to notice that the same people

are dying over and over again,

for instance, Minnie Pearl

who died this year

for the fourth time in four years.

III.

Today is the first day of Lent

and once again I'm not really sure what it is.

How many more years will I let pass

before I take the trouble to ask someone?

It reminds of this morning

when you were getting ready for work.

I was sitting by the space heater,

numbly watching you dress,

and when you asked why I never wear a robe

I had so many good reasons

I didn't know where to begin.

If you were cool in high school

you didn't ask too many questions.

You could tell who'd been to last night's

big metal concert by the new t-shirts in the hallways.

You didn't have to ask

and that's what cool was:

the ability to deduce,

to know without asking.

And the pressure to simulate coolness

means not asking when you don't know,

which is why kids grow ever more stupid.

A yearbook's endpages, filled with promises

to stay in touch, stand as proof of the uselessness

of a teenager's promise. Not like I'm dying

for a letter from the class stoner

ten years on but...

Do you remember the way the girls

would call out "love you!"

conveniently leaving out the "I"

as if they didn't want to commit

to their own declaration.

I agree that the "I" is a pretty heavy concept

and hope you won't get uncomfortable

if I should go into some deeper stuff here.

IV.

There are things I've given up on

like recording funny answering machine messages.

It's part of growing older

and the human race as a group

has matured along the same lines.

It seems our comedy dates the quickest.

If you laugh out loud at Shakespeare's jokes

I hope you won't be insulted

if I say you're trying too hard.

Even sketches from the original Saturday Night Live

seem slow-witted and obvious now.

It's just that our advances are irrepressible.

Nowadays little kids can't even set up lemonade stands.

It makes people too self-conscious about the past,

though try explaining that to a kid.

I'm not saying it should be this way.

All this new technology

will eventually give us new feelings

that will never completely displace the old ones,

leaving everyone feeling quite nervous

and split in two.

We will travel to Mars

even as folks on Earth

are still ripping open potato chip

bags with their teeth.

Why? I don't have the time or intelligence

to make all the connections,

like my friend Gordon

(this is a true story)

who grew up in Braintree, Massachusetts,

and had never pictured a brain snagged in a tree

until I brought it up.

He'd never broken the name down to its parts.

By then it was too late.

He had moved to Coral Gables.

V.

The hill out my window is still looking beautiful,

suffused in a kind of gold national park light,

and it seems to say,

I'm sorry the world could not possibly

use another poem about Orpheus

but I'm available if you're not working

on a self-portrait or anything.

I'm watching my dog have nightmares,

twitching and whining on the office floor,

and I try to imagine what beast

has cornered him in the meadow

where his dreams are set.

I'm just letting the day be what it is:

a place for a large number of things

to gather and interact--

not even a place but an occasion,

a reality for real things.

Friends warned me not to get too psychedelic

or religious with this piece:

"They won't accept it if it's too psychedelic

or religious," but these are valid topics

and I'm the one with the dog twitching on the floor,

possibly dreaming of me,

that part of me that would beat a dog

for no good reason,

no reason that a dog could see.

I am trying to get at something so simple

that I have to talk plainly

so the words don't disfigure it,

and if it turns out that what I say is untrue,

then at least let it be harmless

like a leaky boat in the reeds

that is bothering no one.

VI.

I can't trust the accuracy of my own memories,

many of them having blended with sentimental

telephone and margarine commercials,

plainly ruined by Madison Avenue,

though no one seems to call the advertising world

"Madison Avenue" anymore. Have they moved?

Let's get an update on this.

But first I have some business to take care of.

I walked out to the hill behind our house

which looks positively Alaskan today,

and it would be easier to explain this

if I had a picture to show you,

but I was with our young dog

and he was running through the tall grass

like running through the tall grass

is all of life together,

until a bird calls or he finds a beer can

and that thing fills all the space in his head.

You see,

his mind can only hold one thought at a time

and when he finally hears me call his name

he looks up and cocks his head.

For a single moment

my voice is everything:

Self-portrait at 28.

(from Actual Air, Open City Books, New York, 1999)

Posted by Hans.

First post

Welcome to the Write. Poetry. Right. Now! blog. Our class will periodically post poems (our own and ones we enjoy), articles, or ideas.

Please enjoy!

-Russell Jaffe