True saints of the mystic band

Poetry does not lie outside the world as a fantastic impossibility begotten of the poet's brain; it seeks to be the exact opposite, an unvarnished expression of truth, and for this reason must cast away the trumpery garments worn by the supposed reality of civilized society.

The process of distillation becomes one of expansion

A long piece of writing I had been living with for almost two years had recently reached the stage where a books essential significance is at stake- Hesse

Another of Wilk's sayings was "The cut worm forgives the plough" it was usually accompanied by a melting enigmatic half-smile, those chariots would flash and you knew he really believed in the truth of the words. It was sometime later that I discovered they were Blake's. He saw angels in Peckham Rye; so of coarse he believed in them.

Quotidian Songs

The city and it's fabric have me painted into a corner. A summer cast in iron holds me down. On the pavement cracks a cocktail glass; I rip and tear a paper napkin, say "Merci" to the waiter, excuse myself and try to disappear. Going back to the stuffy atmosphere of my room doesn't feel a very satisfactory option, alternatively the river seems to fill me with light, dappled light which only occurs on long lazy afternoons. Watching a rowboat gently drift away, I take an elegant black bottle from my pocket, uncork it and drink down a few drops. I left Charles back at the cafe with his refillable museum of dead words. Another headless poet grows in the perfumed garden, not attracted by the mellow warmth of the compost heap.

Manet Paintings

Boy with cherries: The young boy slumps against the wall, luxurious mauve red cherries tumble out of a make shift basket of leaves. The red cap he wears at a rakish angle brands him as a rascal, a raider of orchards, an artful dodger of the market stalls. His smile, which Manet uses as a confirmation that a child is guiltless in a world of chaos.

Notes on old Wilks

Old Wilks places his bony hand on my shoulder and a cascade of fiery chariots flash across his eyes. It's times like this I tell him I believe that nature will prevail without an intermediary. Wilks to me has always had the appearance of someone who has come out of a dream, absentmindedly wandered to a closed door, opened it, stepped into a different world and decided to stay. Why he would choose to stay is what I can't fathom.
The first time I met the old man, I noticed he seemed to give off the faint odor of hickory, a smell that after awhile warmed my heart.

Imagine how the ecstatic sounds of the Dionysiac rites penetrated ever more enticingly into that artificially restrained and discreet world of illusion, how this clamor expressed the whole outrageous gamut of nature- delight, grief, knowledge, even to the most piercing cry; and then let us imagine how the Apollonian artist with his thin monotonous harp music must have sounded beside the demoniac chant of the multitude!

Van Gogh

Oh nightingale
yes nightingale
that cutting throat
where loneliness
knows no bounds
sing a song that weeps
for my spirit
for today
love has chosen to die
chosen to end the silence
of the heart
with a gun shot

To fall a sleep

It passes through me, a mist that leaves me with a vague sensation of weightlessness; an impression with no out lines, a silhouette that is interchangeable, an illusion, a dream.
Between the falling and the landing is the dream, the distance from one reality to another. The bed is the haven of the depressed. Nightmares are better than this waking daylight, that floods with sanity. Walking the walls of a tornadoes flawless twist.

The winter blew in cold and unexpected, as I softly walked out the door. I could smell food sizzling on a backyard grill. I grabbed the last cold beers in the fridge, a blimp of mild tasting hash and two baking potatoes; Iris had said that I should come on over regardless of her husbands behavior. I squeezed through the privet hedge, holding the beer and spuds. Iris and Harold live in a small cottage, the type you'd expect Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle to be ironing clothes outside of, black and white and thatched, country style. Harold is a retired Major, fox hunting man. Iris is his wife.
"I see chicken's your favorite Harold" I remark as I deposit my offerings on a plastic lawn table.
" It's on special this week"
I resist the urge to make a comment about salmonella.
"Where's the fabulous face lift"
"I wish you wouldn't call her that"
"It's not as if I don't call Iris that to her face, she thinks it's funny"
"Well some people have an odd sense of the comedic tradition"

There's probably only one place Iris would be on a Sunday afternoon, The Lady Lake Health and Beauty Spar; where they enable aging ladies to maintain a youthful aesthetic that little bit longer.

An advertisment in a newspaper can become a revelation; the most exhilarating, the most affirmative thoughts can spring from a completely irrelevant word if one turns it about, playing with the letters as if it were a puzzle.

*

I'm going to goose growing university
gonna get a golden egg that's just for me.

Old mother Hubbard went to the cupboard
and a pipe bomb went off in her face.
*

....the great optimist rationalist utilitarian victory, together with democracy, it's political contemporary, was at the bottom nothing other than a symptom of a declining strength.

Strange dreams

I should devote the day to writing them down, as Herman Hesse points out a simple dream can burst forth with thousands of memories and feelings, the best we can do is scribble down some shorthand. S is leaving to go back to work today, she dropped off a bunch of veggies this morning, cabbage, carrots, broccoli, spring onions, she couldn't get them in her traveling pack, I think she was just being kind. I picked some peas from the garden...must steam the swiss chard aswell. Dreams and eating...my day is planned.

Notes on chaos

.....that no idea, no law, no character or order exists that is true and right except as seen from one pole- and for every pole there is an opposite pole. Settling upon a pole, adopting a position from which the world is viewed and arranged, this is the first principle of every order, every culture, every society and morality. Whoever feels, if only for an instant, that spirit and nature, good and evil are interchangeable is the most dangerous enemy of all forms of order. For that is where the opposite of order is, and there chaos begins.

Who pulled your chain

Break from the body and transport!
(I would show you how but it's rather cloudy today)

*

For writing poetry, especially when one is young, does not have just one social function, that of bring pretty works of art into the world and through them delighting or exhorting; rather writing poetry can have, completely independent of worth and possible success of the poems produced, an irreplaceable value for the poet themselves.

Piano Moon

Stones on the body
in electrified cool
clear water
their bellies touched
tiny scars held within
the days of blood
the thin needles of night

They explored each other
in order to find their way

*

For only in the intensive self examination of analysis can a portion of the individual's developmental history be actually experienced and transfused with the blood of feeling