Feb 27, 2015 | Uncategorized
227.
Of course do it for the other the hot
blue sky
what hurts us helps the corn
protein the decisive factor in
cultural history
egg white is intellect tempera and
madrigal
for I was another country when I
slept
and now am you
Interdependence Day each man a king
belonging to one another we are spoken
from Being
he was the only one who made a little
sense and look what happened
marauding mind trapped in a stale
idea it had
horror of hurting another for the
sake of an idea
Bruno burnt among flowers.
228.
You don’t need me to tell it is never
right to kill
Holocaust or unsolved murder
only the numbers are different
to kill one person is to kill the
world
capital punishment corrodes the state
to kill one woman destroys the human
race
Jesus was a man murdered by the state
that’s all you need to know about the
government
no one ever has the right to kill
this is the only thing I know
and out of it I lift stone by stone
my feeble tower
to make a work where all of you are
safe.
Feb 26, 2015 | Uncategorized
225.
Born again normal in a nullish world
dance in the drugstore waiting for
your pills
description is prescription
ask the subway florist for gardenia
you’ll see why later she explained
walk along the esplanade all those
ships are thee
nothing’s better left unsaid
or are you Irish before all and
grassy
I want to know where the lost ones
live
touching our fingertips together is
enough to start the dance
a flaw in the pattern is the meaning
of the weave
a gnat drinking salt from a child’s
eye.
226.
Music finds you
it was made to do that
to be small and slip in everywhere
the crawl of beauty through the null
you don’t hear anything if you listen
don’t listen to the quartet like a
mechanic checking the engine
listen to music the way you go to sleep
all of you at once
anything else is college stuff
required courses in tonality reality
a proud humility is the way to do
anything
listen reverent as a king hearing the
first robin in spring
can you do that can you take it
gently in the hands of your ears.
Feb 25, 2015 | Uncategorized
223.
Then again the linden trees this year
blossomed
we sleep and wake in the scent of
them
pale obscure little flowers that fill
the night air
but am I a character in your epic
uneasy narrative of words spewing
words
stochastic craziness full of ancient
Greek
when I just want to smell the flowers
rest again on someone’s cheek
as if the war had never shattered my
electron shell
left me gasping naked on the shingle
beach
before the monsters crept back to the
deep
and the ospreys dropped fish for me
to eat.
224.
Long comber by the shore of ease
why did we ever leave
who are you talking to now
in red or in bed
the harsh bondage of rhyme
subtle bondage of sound
by clang alone bring matter in J.T.
will heal the legend lost souls of
this pale day
find me kindling for my water
dig a hole in air and shove me in
the sound of a word is a niche around
me
sense turns me marble from head to
toe.
Feb 23, 2015 | Uncategorized
221.
I never knew anything it was all made
up
all bluff and prophecy
willful history of our feigned race
imaginary archive of testicular
witness
none of the cathedrals were real
none of the bridges skating rinks
nudist beaches
stockmarkets rainstorms Glastonbury
all loving lies I made for you
all Plotinus all Shakespeare Nag
Hammadi
the lotus garden where the princess
yawned
brass basins of the Temple the rites
of man
national debt all lies and all for
you.
222.
So the perception of the other is the
first mistake
till the Mind is peace and luminous
once it senses other all the stuff
begins
the offerings and arsenal the blood
and fear
until the only cure is to become the
other
sink into other, make the glad of the
other your whole work
then the mind’ll be one again
full of its own serene excitements
beyond the dark and light
try it if you don’t believe me
do enough for the other and nothing
for me
let the ocean show the quick way
home.
Feb 22, 2015 | Uncategorized
219.
You are the debt that has to be repaid
your habit patterns are your only
cage
stay far away from wanting more
more humility among the trees
the cicadas have done their work and
gone
leaving each Egyptian carapace behind
our windowscreen and blacktop and the
lawn
worn out from sheer song fallen
Babylonian with black and gold
I am your mother too don’t you
remember
London Bridge and looked upstream
into the far west we come from now.
220.
Call it weather it will watch you bird-eyed
with wary
you came to rape our fields and steal
our sheep
nothing we can do to stop you but it
can
it knows the way you Troyans trust in
signs
the white pig nestled in leaf shadow
the cloud walking girl-like up the
oak-weary hill
we will give you more signs than you
can read
you’ll never trust your bed again
with all the dreams
this is our land and we are
semaphores
we can’t do anything at all but fill
your senses
every sense complete and all the
information false
the way only the truth can really
lead you wrong.
Feb 20, 2015 | Uncategorized
217.
To measure a day by a meaning
lean crystals sift into your lap
the varieties of greens exhaust
vocabulary
no need to describe what everyone
remembers
the whole street a secret garden a
hidden sign
even a name knows how to hold your
hand
wise fingers apportion peace and war
but have I forgiven all those I hurt
shutters up on the primeval coast
we help each other wade ashore
and nothing more
the gift just happens the sun just rose.
218.
Do it the easy way begin with someone
else
we dance in trance a rhetoric of
selfishness
all we have to give our bodies are
we choose our functions in a balanced
world
whatever it is it always works
that’s the mind for you
no escape from the balanced aquarium
we live and die as suits another and
we are that other
so relax and try to cheat less on
your taxes
it doesn’t work it all comes out of
you
can’t save can’t spend can’t mar
can’t mend
free will is an advertising
ploy.
Feb 19, 2015 | Uncategorized
214.
Sometimes finish something be enough
to begin with
‘a balanced aquarium’
Antin explained when we were kids
so much I learned from him I’ll never
admit
plants feed fish excrete feed plants
oxygen out of nowhere
only the sun needs helium
at the other end of its cosmos last
dream’s gentlest touch
thrill the way a bird does or morning
light
mockingbird on the bridge in rain
where herons often glide from pond to
bay
I’m gasping for breath airless in
Gaza
to see me suffer puts the leaves to
sleep.
215.
Night stuff thick
ankles of consciousness
slow drag a thickened broth
a cake of beef fat offered to birds
there are days music will not listen
means that no one hears
after a month on the sea it is hard
to be anybody else
say it with your hands the way the
night
is religion only something other
people do
glamor of the ivory corpus constantly
reminds
once there was a place where these
things mean
thank God we have to make our own.
216.
Walk over there and meet myself
departing
signs of death I cannot find my shoes
lost my heart in the Rockaways
began to think that love was made of
skin
cathedrals walk beside you when you go
I flew over the Hadramawt and Mars
looked back
the meaningless politeness of the
desert rock
the empty cup I offer to my friends
how little I’ve given, how much
proposed
littoral birds the afikomen found at
last
set me my place at the table near the
door
sometimes the sight of food makes me
despair.
Feb 18, 2015 | Uncategorized
212.
This is Book VIII of the Aeneid
we finally go inland here
where the dark river loves us
into the unknown interior of your
house
where maples hang overslow waters
when we look down to see our faces we
see nothing
the water has faces of its own
animals (this is all about animals)
begin to talk now
we write home saying “animals talk to
us now
what are we going to do with our
silences
our precious silence?” but no letters
come back
deer run right into us we can’t
understand the crows.
213.
I thought she was grieving in her
ogival cloak
her face white but when I bent to
console her
she was laughing she comforted me
she put words in my mouth I wake
half-healed
have to live this clear thing not
just know it
her word was sweet and I spoke it all
day
in the dark country where everybody
lives
keening sometimes or laughing at the
faces
peering out from the hillside ancient
still young
their skin soft as lamb’s ears pale
as mistletoe
they look as if they remember me
but who am I now?
Feb 17, 2015 | Uncategorized
Robert Kelly and Susan Quasha present their book, Winter Music, at the Kleinert Gallery in Woodstock NY, part 2 of 2
Feb 17, 2015 | Uncategorized
Robert Kelly and Susan Quasha present their book, Winter Music, at the Kleinert Gallery in Woodstock, NY, part 1 of 2
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