GLIMPSES OF LONDON

Visit to London from March 26-April 2, 2012. Stuck to the city itself with only side trips by train to city of Bromley to visit one of the few remaining flowing Springs and by river cruise downriver and back to Royal Observatory. The visit was to see my daughter who is studying at University College of London. Was a bit overwhelming because of the number of museums we visited. My observational and interest level was high but after the first thousand items passed my visual stream I started to wear out. I had a list of twenty sacred Springs of London and my wife and son were good sports about trailing along with me as I tried to find them.

Visiting POETS' CORNER was satisfying. A new favorite image is sitting on a folding chair in the POETS' CORNER awaiting inspiration. Took many photos and wrote a few poems.


GLIMPSES OF LONDON

raven at Tower of London

protects the realm from ill prophecy

Indian Tribes of the United States by Schoolcraft

on the shelf at British Museum of Natural History

tiny beads strung in pattern
at chest of young female mummy

Reynard the Fox German illustrations

from the beginning of Romanism

fake bundles of ancestor’s bones

under sign saying some cultures keep their dead with them

giant turtles and giant bears bigger than SUV’s

their bones reattached to skeletor frames

painted taxi body advertising

Singing in the Rain

at Winchester ask the attendant

“Of course, I know where they keep William Blake”

1500 headless bodies found buried under

the church floor, now nameless traitors

homemade meat pies served by the cook herself

from her kitchen last night, now off a cart at Greenwich Market

oval sand-white stone in pocket

smooth memory of Saint Blaise’s Spring

two wing feathers found side-by-side

in a flowerbed at Royal Observatory

March 31, 2012

London

HOT DOG EATING WITH BERNADETTE MAYER, PHIL GOOD & ALAN CASLINE TASTE TEST

Famous Lunch, Troy, New York

At Dan Wilcox’s 2012 January 1st poets get-together at his house in Albany, my wife Jennifer Pearce was arguing on my behalf when she heard Bernadette Mayer and Phil Good declare the best hot dogs in the world were found at Famous Lunch in Troy, New York. She knew I had a hound in that pound as I had introduced her to Mike’s Hot Dogs in Schenectady, New York. She came and got me and I was immediately involved in a dispute of epic proportions. Mike’s is a family tradition, my father, Louis Casline having first taken me there when I was still a high school student back in the 1960s. I had long considered Mike’s Hot Dogs to be the best in the area (if not the world) There was no way to settle this, we all decided, except to meet up and do a hot dog comparison. The day started on February 15, 2012 with Jennifer on her way to work as a pediatric medical doctor saying, “I’m going out to save lives. You’re going out to eat hot dogs… That’s my comment.” My comment was “Someone has to be enjoying life.” Later, Bernadette added a comment “Hot dog eating is serious business” and Phil said “It is all part of the process.”

I had done some preliminary research and felt I had a definite one-up on Mike’s over Famous. On the internet, I discovered that Famous Lunch actually shipped their hot dogs by FedEx anywhere in the world. That was so pretentious! Whatever the results on the taste testing I had a point or two in favor of the authentic workingman’s never shipped farther than City Hall Mike’s Hot Dogs I grew up on. The eventful trip from East Nassau to Troy brought us downhill to the appropriate hole-in-the wall urban location of Famous Lunch. I had eaten there before! Years ago in Troy, I had certainly had breakfast there. We got down to hot dogs and basics. The Famous Lunch hot dogs are mini-dogs, half the size of regular dogs and thus I ordered four with everything on. While waiting, I took out my notebook as Phil and Bernadette agreed with me that we should have CRITERIA.

Inside Famous Lunch, Troy New York

CRITERIA FOR JUDGMENT
(1) Crispiness
(2) Texture
(3) Which are more delicious
           a. Toppings
           b. Amount of salt
(4) Ratio onion to sauce
(5) Ambience
(6) Context

The hot dogs arrived and I immediately knew I had been set-up because the Famous Lunch hot dogs are extremely crunchy and crispy. They were more of a sausage consistency than a traditional hot dog.
Very good and I knew I was down to Bernadette and Phil already unless by some change the First Prize Hot Dogs Mike’s used were ones that had sat on the grill for a few hours getting crisper (unlikely because of the quick lunch time sell through). I can report (which may gain me sympathy from local readers) that Bernadette and Phil had never heard of “First Prize Hot Dogs.” I even described the decrepit old First Prize Meats factory building off Everett Road in Albany that pretty much fell down before it could be torn down. They had never heard or seen the old factory building either. We actually agreed that the Famous Lunch hot dog had the best Crispiness. In scoring that would give the Famous one point.

The criteria Texture was a perfectly good criteria but we failed to discuss texture except to agree the hot dogs had texture. There must be some reason we all liked Mike’s hot dog as a “hot dog” and I’m going to say it was the texture and give Mike’s one point.

Which are more delicious is a criteria that might as well be “the heading” for the whole hot dog comparison but happily we had added two sub-criteria to make the category measurement clearer. Toppings: Meat sauce, onions, mustard. Here we had much discussion, agreement and disagreement.
The meat sauce at famous Lunch is called Zippy Sauce. Mike’s meat sauce is called Meat Sauce. Why Zippy Sauce is unknown and lost in time? The sauces are both good but they differ. Famous is coarser with meat in varied pieces. When famous is on your plate a thin red juice comes flowing out of it like two levels of messiness. The actual meat mess and this second outer flow of oily red juice mess. Mike’s is smoother and technically more of a sauce in the dictionary definition sense. The mustards were equal in your standard bright yellow way. The onions were fresh and crunchy raw at Mike’s and Bernadette pointed out this detail of obvious Mike’s superiority to Famous. Amount of salt was chosen as a criteria after the first Famous Lunch hot dogs were eaten and it was noticeable the meat sauce was a bit heavy on the salt. I am going to throw this Amount of salt sub-criteria out because Phil and Bernadette both told me it was unusual that there would be this much salt (something about amount of salt in the water, I didn’t get it) and because the criteria was a SET-UP TO FAIL bogus push poll thought-up item conceived in reaction to a honest experiential moment. Which are more delicious went two to one for Famous Lunch in the Bernadette and Phil on one side and Alan on the other side dichotomy.

Bernadette and Phil at Famous Lunch

Ratio onion to sauce is a beautiful world harmony balance of the spheres kind of criteria. Phil Good was able to expound on this Buddhist Tao inspired inner attunement by relating stories of an earlier “teaching”
that involved “Burger to Bun ratio” Here the best hot dog was Mike’s. The full-size roll helped hold amounts of both and the fresh raw onions reached out to the overlying sauce like brother and sister stars shining in the same heaven on a summer night. One point for Mike’s Hot Dogs for Ratio onion to sauce.

Ambience/oh that most subjective of criteria. Surroundings? Environment? Cleanliness by unanimous vote is not a considered criteria for a hot dog joint. Bernadette did say Mike’s was “A little too clean. I feel too clean for my taste.” Famous Lunch used to be called “The Hairy Arm” because the cook there had very hairy arms and would stack the hot dogs all along his forearm to carry them to the customer’s plates where he’d pick them off one at a time. He could carry a few dozen hot dogs from the grill to customers on his hairy arms, yum, how appetizing. Famous Lunch also has an arced doorway from main room to hallway that has bathrooms. Mike’s doesn’t…you just go around the corner.

"Nice Neon" MIKE'S HOT DOGS, Schenectady, New York

At first the solid wood frame-box around the working coin operated phone at Famous Lunch seemed to be a winner but then we got to Mike’s Hot Dogs and they have two phone booths of exactly the same design so that cancels each other out. Mike’s environment is “neater” but that is not definitely a better trait. Bernadette Mayer observed “Mike’s looks like a bathroom.” It is a long narrow painted concrete block rectangle. Famous Lunch is even narrower, looks like a hallway as much as a room. I had not noticed but sitting there and comparing I realized that, unlike Famous Lunch, Mike’s Hot Dogs probably did a renovation in the last twenty years, mostly that was some fresh paint. Bernadette thought the Norman Rockwell print hanging on one white concrete wall was a “heavy negative.” I thought it was so bad it was good and pointed out the Christmas wrapping paper covering the wall imbedded air-conditioning unit as a possible make-up for the Rockwell. I felt the lack of reading material at Famous Lunch was a weakness. I will read everything and anything when I am looking at a wall containing written material. At Mike’s there was a lot more to read. Stuff like NO TOASTED HARDROLLS BETWEEN 11AM-3PM. No advantage could be decided on for Ambience. Each place in a tie gets one point.

Alan Casline at Mike's Hot Dogs with his notebook

Context is the last criteria. Bernadette and Phil said they have only brought one other poet to Famous Lunch (Brenda Coultas). Family members have been many. Her son Max really likes the place. I have never brought any other poets to Mike’s Hot Dogs. I have talked with poets Tom Corrado and Alan Catlin about Mike’s. My family has been there. I pick Mike’s for my Birthday dinner (their French fries are really good too). My son Tom really likes the place. As I said my father introduced me to Mike’s Hot Dogs over forty years ago. I could walk there when I lived in the Stockade neighborhood with my brother Jamie in Schenectady in the late 1980’s. In the last year of my mother Georgiana’s life she had a Doctor’s appointment in Schenectady and I thought do I dare bring my frail eighty year-old mother to lunch at Mike’s Hot Dogs? I decided I could and when we got there she sat up on a stool and ate two whole dogs with the works. Then she said, “Your father used to bring me here all the time.” Of course he would have. The history of the place in my family got pushed back another ten years. Context seems to me to be another tie in the comparison. The totals come to Famous Lunch five points and Mike’s Hot Dogs five points. We didn’t use the other suggested criteria After Burp or How well do they settle in your stomach? Phil said the Famous Lunch after burp was “good quality” but we hadn’t come up with these additional criteria until after we had exited Famous Lunch. There didn’t seem to be anyway to break the tie. Perhaps it is the best of all outcomes.

Phil Good "All Good"

Then I got the idea, what about the shipping of hot dogs by FedEx? Surely this would shift a point in my direction. ‘Hey Mike” I said to the guy at the grill (not really). Hey, I said to the guy at the grill, do you ever ship Mike’s Hot Dogs? The answer was “Not very often but yes we have. We have put the hot dogs on dry ice and shipped them by FedEx all over the world. Damm, there went my last advantage. Showing her typical magnanimousness of spirit Bernadette Mayer said I think the very best hot dog would be Mike’s bun and hot dog and Famous Lunch’s zippy sauce and toppings. A utopian vision if there ever was one.

Next I took Phil and Bernadette to see French’s Hollow on the Normanskill and then to POETS CORNER at Smitty’s Tavern in Voorheesville (which she and Phil were jokingly calling the ‘Ville.) After some wine and beer on the way back to East Nassau, Bernadette went back to change the record a bit. “Tell Jennifer” she said ‘Saving lives is more important but hot dog eating is second.”

A GUY SINGS DON’T BE CRUEL OUTSIDE OF FAMOUS LUNCH IN TROY, NEW YORK

Bernadette’s already talking to him
as Phil and I leave Famous Lunch.
She’s always talking to people on the street
homeless people, crazies
I’m outside for a smoke she explains
He’s a short little guy
got sort of a permanent squint thing going on
“I got something I got to show you”
Starts reaching in his back pocket
Pulling his wallet out
“That’s not some naughty pornographic picture is it?
I don’t want to see that, don’t show me that”, Bernadette goes
I think streets of New York City.
yeah Bernadette would know what might be up.
It’s his driver’s license photo
Same guy, just his driver’s license picture-face
under smugged plastic cover.

We each lean over and look at it.
“I used to work at Famous Lunch seven years ago, dishwasher
I worked hard, did a good job, he fired me.”
Seven years later the same guy who fired him
is dishing zippy sauce on to mini-dogs.
One of the owners, set up like a minstrel show
performed in the window of the diner.
“I’m not allowed in there anymore.”
“You know the worst thing about working as a dish washer, I ask him
and now I have his attention. “Egg yolks”
He giggles, nods his head, yes.
Cause you got to scrub them. Egg yolk sticks to the plate…
can’t spray them off
have to scrape and scrub
“You have to soak them” Bernadette says.
No, no you can’t do that
you have to clean them right then
you can’t wait.
Street guy nods at me again
Because you need to use the plates again right away Phil says
“Dishwasher, Rootdrinker International Publisher, you’ve got quite a spread there” he goes
Naugh, they’re both the same thing or close to it anyway, I pitch back
Now our sidewalk gathering has attracted another, taller guy in a green camouflage coat.
You going to show them your Elvis?
He nudges the first guy into it.
Sure enough the little guy pulls out some dark sunglasses
and starts crooning some Elvis, really low and all slurred
He’s swaying, doing something with his hands,dancing-like, body going limp.
Till he looks like he is starting to fall
Bernadette puts a hand on him to steady him.
He stops and then he says
They say Elvis is dead. He’s not dead.
I’ll show you come into my room
got my day glow Elvis poster,
mumbles something more then gets clear
Know what’s written on the door to my room
IF YOU ENTER THIS ROOM I’LL KILL YOU.
We switch away and praise him
for his Elvis impersonation and his dance
but I want to say something more to him,
don’t want to just leave it there
so I ask him, “Know what’s written on my door?”
He wants to know so I tell him
IF YOU ENTER THIS ROOM I WILL KILL YOU
I’m hoping he will get the comic absurdity
in the context of the flow of this conversation
but he doesn’t
just looks into my eyes deciding if there is anything he wants to say
I am trying to give him my friendly-eyes
but I don’t think I can help letting in a bit of my measuring eyes
Once again Casline humor puzzles more than laughs
On the way back to the car we talk about how
none of us were afraid of him.
Not afraid scared but maybe worried weird
He wasn’t going to do anything violent
but he could of come out of nowhere
maybe done something really weird
He didn’t. He was an OK guy
A guy singing Don’t Be Cruel outside of Famous Lunch
in Troy, New York

February 15, 2012
Troy, New York


These photos (below) are from Smith's Tavern in Voorheesville, New York. Every Wednesday Evening poets from the region gather there to read poems, pass on books and discuss points of literary merit and local humor. After a day of  hot dogs, Bernadette and Phil were welcomed by a few of the regulars.

poets: Jim Williams, Dennis Sullivan, Phil Good, Obeeduid, Tom Corrado and Bernadette Mayer 

                                                        Obee' imagines what is happening

Jim Williams, Dennis Sullivan at Smith's Tavern (2/15/2012)

Text and all photos by Alan Casline

CLOUDBURST - RED CELL

I was thinking about the energy pattern of a cloudburst. I still don't understand the phenomena. Steve Lewandowski said it is caused by extreme temperature differences. I guess that is part of it, I am not convinced and besides it is the moving currents that are my focus. Cloudburst is found in breaking through as energy pattern. One in Rushville, New York had Stephen and I driving around looking at ditches -- twenty-five year event, hundred year-event, thousand year-event (forget-about-it). Next day in a cloudburst for over one-hundred miles driving east. I couldn't outdrive the storm. It brought visibility down to almost zero and my speed to 20 MPH. Then it would clear all the way to sunlight. I'd speed up to 70 MPH but I couldn't outrun this storm as you can with some rain.

cloudburst right with me all the way.

back in cloudburst fury. Our paths converged.

in one spot a deluge washes over gone and clear

cloudburst moves, huge weather patterns move

cloudburst a rip in the water-filled clouds

carried across continents, bigger than countries

I was caught in a cloudburst while driving from west to east along the New York State Thurway this September. It brought visibility down to almost zero and my speed to 20 MPH. Then it would clear all the way to sunlight. I'd speed up to 70MPH but i couldn't outrun the storm for some reason. The perspective of observation seem to be from the point-of-view of the rained-upon. I am interested in what I imagine as a tear in the cloudsky, all the water of a lake brought up and then "burst" and let go.

Robert Frost goes:

For when all that was rotted rich

Shall be in the end scoured poor,

When my garden has gone down ditch,

Robert Frost knowing the damage, 15-20 years of soil-building can wash away in a few minutes. Understanding cloudburst I start to realize is about being ready for even the cloudburst that comes once every thousand-years. I woke-up, wide-awake in the middle of the night a few days ago. I remembered that I did write a cloudburst poem a few years ago or at least one on the rushing intense weather coming on.The local weather news has the habit of emitting buzz noice whenever a strong run of lightening runs down the Mohawk Valley to Albany. Here's the poem.

RED CELL

A red cell on the weather map,

moving towards Albany

with incredible speed.

Racing into town to cause trouble

like the over-sized kid

with the angry look on his face

hurrying to reach the playground

and moving in the direction of your own child.

The lightning shook the house.

Hit so close, my son tells me,

everything flashed white.

We could smell burning

coming from the computer.

This is not good,

turned the computer off.

No tree seems to be down in the back.

I open a sliding-door,

to peer through sheets of rain,

looking for a smoking remnant.


June 27, 2007
Delmar, N.Y.            

IMPRESSIONS BEFORE & AFTER

IMPRESSIONS OF PEOPLE

Impressions of people
I have never met
when they touch and connect
with my heart
I am moved by
what leaves an impression.

……………………………………………………………………………………

Key: matter in square brackets is the etymology.
ME = Middle English, MF=Middle French, OE=Old English, ON=Old Norse, L=Latin, OHG=Old High German, Gk=Greek. G=German, Hitt=Hittite, Russ=Russian, VL=Vulgar Latin
Etymology: the history of a linguistic form (as a word)

Impressions: [ME, impressen, from L impressus, pp. of imprimere from in- + premere to press] syn see IDEA

Of: [ME, off, of from OE; akin to OHG aba off, away, L ab from away, Gk apo] used as a function word to indicate a point of reckoning.

People: [ME, peple, from OF peuple, from L poplus]

I: [ME from OE ic; L and Gk ego, Hitt uk, G ich, Russ ja] one who is speaking or writing

Have: [ME haven from OE habben; haven to lift (see heave)] to hold in possession as property

Never: [ME from OE næfre from ne not + æfre ever] at no time, degree, under any condition

Met: past tense of Meet: [ME meten from OE metan akin to OHG muoz meeting] join, find contact, conjunction with another direction

When: [ME from OE hwanna, hwenne} just at the moment

They: [ME from ON their] people, used in a generic sense. characteristic of a whole group

Touch: [ME touchen, VL toccare to knock, strike a bell

And: [ME from OEakin to OHG unti] indicate connection or addition

Connect: [L conectere, connectere, from com- + nectere to bind]

With: [ ME, against, from, with, from OE akin to OE wither against} comparison or equality

My: [ akin to OE me ]

Heart: [ ME hert from OE heorte akin to OHG herza, L cord, cor-, Gk kardia] (1.) muscular organ, (2.) playing card, (3.) whole personality (4.),\ the emotional or moral not the intellectual

I: [ME from OE ic; L and Gk ego, Hitt uk, G ich, Russ ja] one who is speaking or writing

Am: [ ME from OE eom akin to ON em am, L sum, Gk eimi]

Moved: [ ME moven from MF monvoir]
syn: see ACTUATE, DRIVE, IMPEL

By: [ME from OE, akin to OHG bi, near. L ambi- on both sides, around, Gk amphi]

What: [ME from OE hwaet, ] as adj. expressing inquiry about the identity, nature, or value

Leaves: [ME leven from OE laefan akin to OHG version of leiben to leave, OE be lifan to be left over]

An: [ME from OE an one}

Impression:[ME, impressen, from L impressus, pp. of imprimere from in- + premere to press]

Note: Thus poem hinges on different meanings for the word impression. Also in a number of words there is a choice between a material meaning and a meaning that describes relational situations. I think in each case it is the relational emotive form that is used, example “moved” Not physically moved but emotionally moved. “Heart” not the muscular organ but the emotional or moral encounter

Meanings of impression:

1.) Stamping or pressing

2.) Imprint of the teeth used in dentistry

3.) Marked influence or effect on feeling, sense, or mind

4.) A single print or copy made through meeting of inked printing surface and the material being printed

5.) A usually indistinct or imprecise notion or remembrance

6.) An imitation of salient features in an artistic or theatrical medium

I wrote the poem to use meaning (1.) in line one and meaning (3.) in the last line.
Alternatively the last line could be meaning (5.)
or the poem could be stood on its head and the meaning for the first line could be (3.)
and the last line (1.)


IMPRESSIONS OF PEOPLE

impressions of people

noiseless shadows,

tickle my mind.

never met

but do not doubt

their existence.

just at the moment

they touch they bind

my heart

moved by what

leaves an impression.

printed into blank surface

poetry inked & stamp; pressed

words from another language

January 14, 2012
Elsmere, New York

Strangely enough this poem now describes the experience of making it. The way words from another person in a poem are also words from another language, from another people and both the person’s words and the people’s words make their impression. If read with enough force, a deep impelling stamp, not a brush of chalk to be quickly erased. The reading of the poem is perhaps the mechanism, the printing press itself, which doesn’t get mentioned in this poem.

I did this work as assignment for a writing workshop I am taking with Bernadette Mayer. The assignment was to take a poem and research every word. Then rewrite the poem.

----- Alan Casline
           1/14/2012

MY EZRA POUND EXPLORATION

I spent a few months exploring Ezar Pound for a Posey Cafe presentation. It gave me an over all sense of Pound's Cantos that I had not had before. I looked at only four of the Cantos which I picked because they grabbed me and  led me to areas of my interest. I also wrote a bit about my backward travel from the Curriculum of the Soul to Ezar's epic.

going backwards to find Ezra Pound

a poet with an epic poem THE CANTOS

my poetic education through Albert Glover and Jack Clarke, edited and published

A Curriculum of the Soul

understood to be multi-authored time and history capturing like Homer

cause Homer wasn’t one guy and submerged egotism ownership

issues, issued forth

some impressive poets

my education being
neither Clarke or Glover wanting to say their “great project” was they were creating an epic
instead it was aim at the target without looking at the target
empting mind, knowing the target, arrow etc. (zen tricks)
Greek hubris hanging out there with speculation on ancient Greeks, speculation from scholarly sources
while contempory other poets happy enough to make them a target

Charles Olson gave a start with his outline or plan plus also
THE MAXIMUS POEMS
an epic poem I think most would agree

Maximus is not Charles Olson/Charles Olson is not Maximus

Olson uses Gloucester history, the lives of past and present Gloucester residents, geological history, and current civic events to anchor Maximus to Gloucester. Sometimes Maximus seems to represent all of Gloucester, and at other times, all of humankind.
--- Carl Carlsen – web-site: Poetry of Places in Essex County

I see Olson walking the streets of Gloucester
Just before or just after midnight
Streetlights on, lights on parking lots and fish-factory buildings, a few bars open
The wind is a sea-breeze, chill night light coat
Clanking sound muted from the harbor
Noises small ships make tugging on their anchoring cables
The hills have curved sections, ridges that ungulate but hold an altitude, rough, the heights
Streets that follow parallel to the shore, go up & down, the city streets
Cut by straight steep roads direct to dock areas
Merchants and old traders homes, substantial, brick-hard, timber-strong
Large man’s large strides, at a pace covers ground, sets a self-propelled wind to mix
With a stronger wind blows clouds high out to sea

PATERSON
an epic poem by William Carlos Williams I think most would agree

poem as a field of action, energy field ..new physics calls for new poetry

Williams sense of time as poetic meter
applied consciousness of social and physical environment & unconscious possibility
in PATERSON. 1940’s found reality in form of letters, historical accounts lifted whole

PATERSON’s poetic collage

poetry of spontaneous association

Pound, Williams, Olson
used compound ideogram
for poetic structure

“creating images”
                  --Daniel Belgard writes in The Culture of Spontaneity
                                                           Univ. of Chicago Press (1998)

“images not from analogy or metaphor
but through synecdoche and parataxis.”

synecdoche:
special for the general make the object the image my red wheel-barrow /the wear on my shoes
general for the special
my hat my house
complex of my thought
shelter of my knowledge
thin shelter from the Chinook knowing the price of milk/scanning groceries

specific reference shows greater larger

in Canto VII applied to leaders of Irish nationalism
The words rattle: shells given out by shells.
The live man, out of lands and prisons,
shakes the dry pods,
seed case sound from rattling seeds
shell as shell protects the kernel
nut gone loose inside shell
only this year’s food
fed no land or prison
escaped that
more dangerous without

parataxis:
act of placing side by side

Mountain Sky Bird poem title 1974
“goose feather bag chest backpack books clothes radio tape music candelabra” line from poem 2011

materials, side-by-side, without comment on the relations

parataxis a foundational element in the poetry of Wallace Stevens. Rae quotes Stevens in saying that parataxis offers an “ambiguity that is so favorable to the poetic mind.”
    --Patricia Rae, in her essay “Bloody Battle-Flags and Cloudy Days: The Experience of Metaphor in Pound and Stevens"

Ezra Pound’s Canto LXXXI lines 34-36

sky’s clear
night’s sea
green of the mountain pool

connections left for reader
only seemingly disconnected fragments
without those connector words
like knife, pencil nub, shiny copper button, paint brush
all in a compartment
built into a desk drawer

Live man goes down into the world of the dead

Pound more alive than the rest of us
through “directed will”
moves “the outward crust”
of time, place

reveal past glories make a new age
not to destroy, clearing ground
mistake of Futurism, chrome hubcaps
mod use of words
like language stripped of prior meaning
- unrooted -

Dead and underworld of early CANTOS in their mythological place later
Pound’s contemporaries metaphorically dead
waking world with zombies populating

poetry is not entertainment pitched to the tune
of low and mid-brow culture –

poetry not fodder for the common people,

language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree

                       

Subject: Will Nixon blogs Christman and Casline

post on William Weaver Christman:Return of a Forgotten Poet

http://willnixon.com/christman

post of Trees by William Weaver Christman

http://willnixon.com/christmantrees

post on Alan Casline, Watershed Poet

http://willnixon.com/alan-casline-watershed-poet

TURN TURN TURN AGAIN

A small creek with sand and flat stone in dry season,

snow melt stirs and carries brown waters swiftly in front of me.

Someone has strung a rope from one bank to the other

leaving me to contemplate how deep the narrow crossing.

Angry river, holes sucking in, walls racing by

Still, footsteps in mud of cattle and people go in the water and come out the other side.

They are wet despite it being two days since the last rain.

I look up and down the road and see no one coming from either direction.

The morning sun doing nothing more then drive a chill wind.

There is I see a faint pathway that follows the river bank

its paltry impression tells me there is not much to merit a turn either up river or down

I look at my shoes choose their soaking over cold toes on slippery purchase.

Roll my pant legs up, grip the rope and travel its sway

placing each step at regular pace just ahead.

There are tiny, unforeseen slips at foot

where the rope steadies, takes a bit of weight

and rights the man.

The water that runs off (excepting that inside my shoes) is a torrent, a trickle, then wrung drops

as I twist the cloth to remove its bite.

Twist the water from my socks as well and go on with bare feet in wet shoes.

Late morning the sun warms the sand so I walk unshod.

Shoes tied together, their string thrown over my shoulder

This is the day I turn for the mountains.

Against their pull I had set my exile.

Could there possibly be anything for me there?

Far distant their snow-covered peaks catch light or hold dark.

All the turnings I had made away I could not shake them

as I could not shake the caress of my other ghosts.

Stubborn for any illusion of freedom as the slaver’s lash sends me on my way

condemned by the laws of the over rulers court.

I don’t think then what strange guarded gates lay in high pastures.

When I set out it was to live, to sing any song, yes beyond their laws and censure.

I look again at the high pass. Maybe there is a different land beyond?

Maybe there is some turn I cannot see that turns me back or causes me to no longer care?

Alan Casline

Exile poem #3

April 14, 2011

Elsmere, New York

eerie from within radioactive Japan- raw video

global warming solved by use of glowing cows instead of electric lights.

seriously this is a raw video of a trip along roads to close into the area of radioactive reactors in Japan.

http://www.rawstory.com/rawreplay/2011/04/eerie-footage-from-inside-japans-radioactive-evacuation-zone/

not a disaster movie
not a road trip
no picnic either

TEXT AS ART IN A COMPARTMENTAL MIND

I thought I'd send a few collage poems to, as it turned out, Nancy Klepsch the curater of a a show called TEXT AS ART held at The Arts Center of the Capital Region. I didn't have high expectations but thought, if they didn't have a lot of submissions maybe my collage poems would fit their criteria and I'd be included in the show. As it turned out the show was small with only seven pieces selected and I made the grade with a bit more RAPIDITAS and I'm told by Nancy exceptionalism (I never said my collage poems weren't good). We had the opening on February 28, 2011 in The Arts Center in Troy, New York. I have a compartmentalized mind. For example I have different publications and do books from my Benevolent Bird Press based on different sections of my thinking which often include different groups of people. Probably most people have different group mailing lists and here I separate even information about what I am doing or new discoveries...send my different arrows flying to hopefully receptive targets.  I try to avoid the hive-mind and the blanket cover of "BIG EGO". The upshot of this is that after attending this TEXT AS ART event, I decided I need to start a new compartment/e-mail list. The show is now over but the effects of the show have the potential to go on. The Albany New York Region has a lot of practicing poets. I throw around the figure of 1000 and it is easily that if you consider the different venues, open mics, workshops, college programs, waitress who hand us doggeral written on napkins, the rappers and slam poets, the country music near-poets  and the Irish...  Experiencing Daniel Nester and Mary Kathryn Jablonski's contribution and reading on February 28th -- I had heard them both "feature read" in the area -- but the context and subject splash of this night just added something and made me think they and the other contributers and myself were held together in a special place. The other disparant souls brought together by Nancy Klepsh were by her design working through different media but the added on energy field of words/text and data rich surface made something different than Albany's 1000 poets all gathered in a single room. Examples: Susan Rivers * "Fabric Memories"; Sara Tack * motion typography; Mary Kathryn Jablonski  * particitatory assemblage poem; Joelle Nadeau Hotaling * poster art; Daniel Nester * first-person conceptual performance and my collage poem.

Seeing is better than reading. I am really just writing this post so I can put up my photographs. The way blogger works if you click on any photo it will enlarge to full screen size. Help yourself!

             Mary Kathryn Jablonski work Quicksilver

                  (L to R) Sara Tack, Mary Kathrym Jablonski and Daniel Nester
                      Nester at The Memoir Office

                      Susan Rivers work Meet Bella

                   Kate Laity work The Square Root of 1 is 1

                                   Alan Casline work  Saddam Don't Like It

                        Alan Casline at the Opening Feb. 28, 2011

BERNADETTE MAYER: SNAKES AND ICICLES

Kinderhook Creek

It has been a great "old fashion" winter here in the northeastern woodlands. Last few winters have been too warm with little snow until February and March. Those late winter storms carry lots of moisture and are helpful for filling the streams but we haven't had a socked in storm piled on storm winter where the snow level goes up and down but never leaves until mud season finally arrives in more years then I can count. That's what we have this winter and despite the snow shoveling I think the earth is more comfortable covered under a blanket of snow and breathing cold air which translates to my comfort too. My daughter Liz gave me snowshoes and I have been watching the weather and snow conditions for the right days to head for the woods. I used to cross-country ski and for backyard trekking I know from experience some winters there are only a few perfect days and if you laze your way past them you are out of luck till next winter. Ever since I got the snowshoes I've been thinking about the hollow of land "cup of water" Tsatsawassa where Bernadette Mayer and Philip Good live. In early January I had found the book Mills on the Tsatsawassa (1983) by Philip L. Lord, Jr. in a bookstore in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.. It is a book I knew about because I researched the area as I wanted to understand the looping and winding of Kinderhook Creek and the confluence of other small tributaries that created the Tsatawassa "cup" but I never thought I'd actually see a copy for sale. When I did I bought the book for Bernadette and Phil. Now as I set out on my choosen perfect day, I was thinking it won't be a problem if they are home to be allowed to snowshoe down to the Kinderhook but just in case I brought a few trade goods. Besides the mills book, I had a bottle of wine and a set of the 2010 Benevolent Bird broadsides plus the mini-book Ten Thoughts About the Eternity of Day by Dennis Sullivan that I used graphics from the exterior plates of Gundestrup Cauldron on. The Cauldron is subject of a current obsession of mine as will be referred to later in this post when we get to the "snakes" part. Phillip was away at work but Bernadette made me welcome (you can't get that many visitors on that road in January). I did my snowshoe trek following animal tracks and staying up on the banks above the Kinderhook Creek.

snowshoe path

There was a layer of hard crust on top of about a foot of powder and on top of the icy crust was about ten inches of fresh soft snow from the last storm. The snowshoes cracked but did not break through the icy layer and the going was pretty easy--held up above the layer of deep snow. I turned up the Tsatsawassa Creek past a low area which showed signs of previous flooding and went on to where the road crossed above and climbed up the steep bank. I got my snowshoe caught under a layer of crust, fell, and had to back up and restart twice before I came out on the roadway again.

Bernadette Mayer January 2011

Back inside again, Bernadette and I fell into our conversation. It was talking about things like different strategies of insulation for which she encouraged me to take a trip to see the attic room, snow for snowshoeing and the need or not for ski poles when doing it. Also the history of the house (which was very interesting to me, twice a church for different congregations and then owned by a Rabbi -- when Bernadette moved in the rooms all had numbers on the doors and they would joke "I'll meet you in room 3 at 8:15")

                                                             attic view

The topic we spent the most time talking about was snakes. It was the Gundestrup Cauldron that pointed me towards the Celtic two-headed snake which is found in the interior detail. Celtic warriors wore two-headed snake torques as armbands. Bernadette knew of the Celtic symbol but didn't know any particular myth or story. She thought that maybe the two heads got into arguments, they disagreed. I don't know why I would get interested in any subject having to do with snakes because they make me uneasy. As I told Bernadette, it is not the sight of a snake, I can look at a snake, watch a snake--it is the rustling, the movement sound that startles me, gives me the heebie-jeebies, makes me jump (supposed to be a survival instinct as old as upright man). She is not brothered by snakes but said she has a friend who also has a snake phobia and whenever the friend visits and they go for a walk, they see snake after snake after snake. The snakes showing themselves. Bernadette asked me if I thought there was a decline in the garter snake population. We both fond of these foundation and sun loving little creatures. My mother had names for favorites who lived in the loose limestone flowerbed walls my Dad hauled stone for and rebuilt every Spring after frost heaves. I said I didn't think there were less garters as I am still seeing them regularly and have a number of nice photos of garter snakes that I have taken in my own Normanskill Watershed.  I'll have to research it. I know there is a world-wide problem with frog and other small reptiles "disappearing" to possible extinction and I've already got bees, herrings and brown bats on my watch list.

garter snake at Christman Preserve

It was kind of an abrupt change of topic and really it was cool to just shoot the breeze but I thought I should ask Bernadette something literary if I was going to go to the trouble of writing some of our conversation up and what she had to say was pretty smart. I said, "I've often stated the position that I would not change a word in one of my poems for the sake of a particular poetic form. There are many poets who do, who change the language to make it fit the requirement of a form." Bernadette Mayer said well it would depend on how much you liked that particular poetic form. She said she could do that, she could take a Bernadette Mayer poem and then write a second Bernadette Mayer poem with the same words but an entire different form and put them both out there side by side. She said she didn't see any reason why a poet couldn't just have one poem they had written in their lifetime and just continually write the poem again and again, each time using a different spacing, line breaks, placement on the page. Made me realize I was thinking of form too narrowly.

We talked some more about wintercold. She said, "Before you go I have to show you my icicle. I show it to everyone who comes and visits." Outside the small kitchen window a massive icicle flowed down. A distance from the side of the house with the lightcatcher still maybe a body length to go before it reached the ground. A great season for icicles as well as the deep snow.

Where had I learned of the Philip L. Lord book? I googled Tsatsawassa because I wanted to understand and draw a map of the different streams and waterways that came together to make the landscape so unique around Mayer and Good's neighborhood. There are not that many internet addresses that mentioned "Tsatawassa." as I told Bernadette. There should be one for the magazine THE TSATSAWASSANS she thought so I volunteered to put notice of it here. THE TSATSAWASSANS is edited by Bernadette Mayer and published by Mademoiselle de la Staples Press. There are still copies of ISSUE #2 available for $7.00 (I'd include a few more dollars for postage) I know blogs like this one have an international reach and it would be cool if this little notice generated some poet to poet exchange. One thing a magazine is about is the associations or poeticworld created in combination, all shaking and shining and emiting an energy field. Besides Bernadette Mayer poems in the magazine there are experiments and colloborations, shared compositions, rewritten poems, eight different poems from eight different poets about neutrinos, a superbowl poem by Mayer and  Good (you get the idea).  Philip Good, housemate amd major contributor (I think he drove to Staples), editor of Blue Smoke and wrote the Drunken Bees Poems is found in the magazine.
 

COVER: THE TSATSAWASSANS, ISSUE #2

PLUS:

Jack Collom--Colorado based with attachments with Naropa-- elder with a Selected Poems 1955-2000 and Exchange of Earth and Sky (2005)

Jamey Jones--Blue Rain Morning-- You-Tube Jamey Jones:The New York Poems

Laura Goldstein-- published ICE IN INTERVALS (2008)-- writer & text sound writer--Chicago

Bill Kusher--NYC poet--praised, was in Creeley edited Best American Poetry 2002

Jennifer Karmin-- multidisciplinary projects, poet, artist--founding member of public art group Anti Gravity Surprise, curates the Red Rover Series

Jason Morris--Vermont Native

Deborah Poe-- fiction editor for Drunken Boat--wrote Elements (Stockport Flats Press 2010)

Layne Browne--born 1966 in Los Angeles--flora/fauna/present.

and Others

I notice Bernadette Mayer had a book Mutual Aid published by Mademoiselle de la Mole Press in 1985. I wonder what happened to that Mademoiselle? The 3rd issue of THE TSATSAWASSANS will be poets whose first name is Bill. Here is the opportunity to get ISSUE #2 pick it up while you can ( $7.00 ) at:

THE TSATSAWASSANS

53 Tasatsawassa Lake Road

East Nassau, NY 12062

USA

Tsatsawassa Creek and Bridge