francis ponge on the poem and the object...

"from now on, may nothing ever cause me to go back on my resolve: never sacrifice the object of my study in order to enhance some verbal turn discovered on the subject, nor piece together any such discoveries in a poem.

always go back to the object itself, to its raw quality, it's difference: particularly its difference from what i've (just then) written about it.

may my work be one of continual rectification of expression on behalf of the raw object (with no a priori concern about the form of that expression).

therefore, writing about the loire from a place along the banks of the river, i must constantly immerse my eyes and mind in it. any time they dry up over an expression, back they must go into the waters of the river.

recognize the greater right of the object, its inalienable right, in relation to any poem... no poem ever being free from absolute judgment a minima on the part of the poem's object, nor from accusation of counterfeit.

the object is always more important, more interesting, more capable (full of rights): it has no duty whatsoever toward me, it is who am obliged to it.

what the preceding lines do not adequately emphasize: consequently, never leave off at the poetic form - though it must be used at some point in my study because it produces a play of mirrors that can reveal persistently obscure aspects of the object. the reciprocal clash of words, the verbal analogies are one of the means for studying the object in depth.

never try to arrange things. objects and poems are irreconcilable.

the point is knowing whether you wish to make a poem or comprehend an object (in the hope that the mind wins out, comes up with something new on the subject). it is the second phase of this alternative that my taste (a violent taste for things, and for advances of the mind) leads me to choose without hesitation.

so my resolve has been reached...

after that i hardly care whether someone chooses to call the outcome a poem. as for me, the slightest hint of poetic droning simply reminds me that i'm slipping back onto the old merry-go-round and need to boot my way off."

francis ponge, banks of the loire, 1941, reprinted in mute objects of expression.

i realized as i was typing ponge's text into the computer, my interests are not only in the sharing of these things via this blog, but also an interest in the act itself of transcribing these texts onto (or into) the computer (and/or paper), and how it effects my reading of them. the act of re-writing (or typing) allows me a different kind of reading experience, moving across letters and words much more intimately in relation to their individual forms, for a second or third reading, and a slow walk upon the construction of language. i seem to comprehend or understand a text differently when i'm reading, than when i'm reading and writing at the same time. movement is fragmented and slowed in the latter case, usually revealing something i'd missed during the initial rolling down a hill with my eyes closed... lately i've felt the need to read things twice, once in a simple singular flow, and once mining the words and the forms to dig deeper. it's not exactly a decision, as it is for the writer, to "comprehend the object" or to "make a poem"; but to comprehend also the poem or writing as an object, and to find within the text that "play of mirrors that can reveal persistently obscure aspects of the object" - in this case the object being the poem itself.

when words are lost and found...

voice reached,
low, close.
heart's red.

hear that
bird spoken.
sound, silence
wind fallen.

know the
whispered wings
and thee.

the answer:

seeking the
way that

is once
felt heavy
and dull.

to thee,
on thy
breast, and

this felt.
heart spoke.

read, know
and understand.

hand felt
and fall.

the knot,
we mourn
the knot.

wind blowing

from lips,

moons, shadow
know all.

(book grabbed,
opened randomly,
text written using two words from each line on one page
in hoffmannstahl's story,
the woman without a shadow.)

when the condition of the photograph mirrors the condition of the man...

song:

when rain, (sings light)rain has devoured my house
and wind wades through my trees,
the cedars fawn upon the storm with their huge paws.
silence is louder than a cyclone
in the rude door, my shelter.
and there i eat my air alone
with pure and solitary songs

while others sit in conference.
their windows grieve, and soon frown
and glass begins to wrinkle with a multitude of water
till i no longer see their speech
and they no longer know my theater.

rivers clothe their houses
and hide their naked wisdom.
their conversations
go down into the deep like submarines:
submerge them, with their pale expressions, in my storm.

but i drink rain, drink wind
distinguish poems
boiling up out of the cold forest:
lift to the wind my eyes full of water,
my face and mind, to take their free refreshment.

thus i live on my own land, on my own island
and speak to god, my god, under the doorway
when rain, (sings light) rain has devoured my house
and winds wade through my trees.

image: RPPC, circa 1920, of bill hodge
poem by thomas merton, from the tears of the blind lions, 1949.

when butterflies grow wings...

here she stands on a rooftop, her costume complete, and surely red, as she climbs the stairs, her graceful pre-ascension, for at the top step, of course, she will fly. and like the great swallowtail butterfly, she will seek honey for sustenance, as well as music and words. on this day she has become. moving from one beautiful stage to another, looking as radiant against the sky as any star, the first of night, or the last before morning. and just after this photo was taken, she will fly, and her beautiful butterfly wings will carry her, across pages, landscapes, lakes, and perhaps even oceans. today she will find whatever it is that she wishes, and tomorrow whatever it is that she seeks, and this day, today, is certainly hers. one can't be certain of the direction she flies, nor her speed, or length of her flying... but just after this photo was taken, she majestically floated upwards in the soft hands of the wind, and a small piece of paper fell from her hands to land upon the surface of this rooftop. her fingerprints were found along its edges, and upon it was written a short text by the poet vesaas, in pencil... his words, a gift, perhaps contained a bit of magnetism, like a radio signal sending a beautiful song of longing, from far away... on the top of the paper it said simply "invitation" and these are the words that followed...

will you give me your hand in the moonlight,
you are leaves...
under open sky. over the yawning precipice.

like leaves,
you and i
trembling in the wind
and quickly gone.
come...

a 1920's photo of a butterfly.
poem: invitation, by tarjei vesaas,from land of hidden fires, 1953.

when chapter titles form a poem...

as it stands in the memory
in the marshes and on the earth
spring in winter.

daybreak with shining horses
the drifter and the mirrors
the wasted day creeps away
on its belly.

washed creeks
fire in the depths
words, words
the dream of stone.

the heart lies naked
beside the highway in the dark
the tranquil river glides
out of the landscape
beyond one's grasp.

just walking up to fetch the churn
the melody
the rivers
beneath the earth.

the titles of chapters in sequence, from terjei vesaas' the boat in the evening.

i'd give anything if only my life were an oxcart...

i'd give anything if only my life were an oxcart
squeaking down the road, early one morning
and later returning to where it started,
toward nightfall, down the same road.

i'd have no need of hopes - i'd need only wheels...
as i grew old i'd have no wrinkles or white hair...
when i'd be of no further use, they'd pull off my wheels
and i'd lie there overturned and broken, at the bottom of a pit.

the poem is from fernando pessoa's 'the keeper of sheep'. it somehow feels very much connected to the photo (a recent find). it's not just the fact that the man being enveloped by light might have a broken wheel or two of his own, and that maybe he too would rather live with no need of hopes. he might even, perhaps, at times, also, lie overturned and broken... but more so it feels that if you read the words and look at the picture you can imagine the poem gently falling out of his mouth in song, and you can hear it echoing about in the loneliness of his room...

2 short poems by paul klee...

my star

my star
rose deep
below
my feet.

where does my fox
go in the winter?
where does my serpent
sleep?

last things last

in the heart's center
the only prayers
are steps
receding.

from voices of german expressionism, 1970

cloud-carrier

you carry a stone gaze
on four feathers
you carry a stone high
on four leaves
using a polite or the familiar form
on a mountain of cups
refreshes the facade of kisses
waters the symmetrical souls
that drop from their left hands
into their right handed mouths
and gobble one another down without kid gloves
using the polite or the familiar form
on a mountain of cups
gives night to a day
that's dressed to the hilt
and that flies off with posh ears
and snowy shoes
to alight on the head of a star
that imitates the human voice

jean/hans arp, 1938, from arp - collected french writings, 1966.

two tiny singing activities for a coffeebreak...

song of uncertain length:

performer, with bottle balanced on his head, walks around singing or speaking until the bottle falls off.

the gift of tongues:

sing meaningfully in a language made up on the spot.

emmett williams, 1960, from selected shorter poems 1978

a poem from max jacob...

moon poem

there are three mushrooms on the night and they are the moon. once a month at midnight they change their position as suddenly as the cuckoo in a cuckoo clock pops out to sing. in the garden there are rare flowers, which are little men lying down, a hundred of them, reflections in a mirror. in the darkness of my bedroom there's a luminous shuttle wobbling menacingly to and fro, then another... phosphorescent blimps, reflections in a mirror. in my head there's a bee talking.

max jacob, the dice cup, atlas press

four poems by josef albers...

1.
the more
the sun shines
the more
water evaporates
clouds appear
and the sun
- shines less

the less
the sun shines
the less
water evaporates
clouds diminish
and the sun
-shines more

da capo

2.
calm down
what happens
happens mostly
without you

3.
one is walking
one is standing
who is more entitled
to the path

4.
easy - to know
that diamonds - are precious
good - to learn
that rubies - have depth
but more - to see
that pebbles - are miraculous

soap bubbles...

images from soap bubbles by c.v.boys, 1911...

in 1997, i made a small film called "astronomy" - filming a series of 1950's kid's astronomy experiments with a super 8 camera i had received for my 13th birthday. when i spotted this book at a used bookstore around the same time; my plan was to use it as a script for another film. unfortunately, i never got around to filming it; but the idea of both films (the one made and the one imagined) seem to go against c.v. boys' introductory text to this book:

"an experiment is not a conjuring trick, something simply to make you wonder, nor is it simply shown because it is beautiful... their chief object is to enable you to see for yourselves what the true answers are to the questions that i shall ask."

boys' answers, of course, carry weight and interest; but i have always found a different kind of truth in the experience of wonder and the exploration of beauty...

i love these images for their mystery and their ability to evoke things beyond illustration and understanding. taken out of context, they have the ability to be traveresed with eyes, fingers, and minds towards some greater unknown (plus how else do you arrive at a place connecting victorian soap bubble imagery with duchamp's rotoreliefs!). there's a whitman poem about astronomy that contradicts boys' introductory text beautifully:

When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide,
and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with
much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

of course, i'd take it a step further and hope that one could look down in perfect silence at the charts, diagrams, and numbers in their mystical air as well!

lastly, take a peek at the wonderful new woolgathersome blog... to see another printing of the same book here ....