Jorie Graham reading at the 2006 Dodge Poetry Festival

I wonder if her tone (by the publication date and sometime thereafter ...when the feeling has sadly evaporated) inflects what I hear as weariness and exhaustion? The longest, extenuated blink, and it is over. Again. Again.

I have my father's Portable Nietzsche, Viking, 1954.

Helen Mirren in Prime Suspect - Part 20 (22)

I remember watching this many, many years ago in April. Now, another in a series, by gasps and wheezes, at sea...

From Astonish Yourself! 101 Experiments in the Philosophy of Everyday Life by Roger-Pol Droit (trans. 2002)

76 Seek out immutable landscapes

Duration: interminable
Props: the Earth
Effect: perennial

It is not exactly nostalgia. A certain tenderness, perhaps, a slightly melancholic form of curiosity. It drives one to seek out landscapes that are the same today as they have been for tens of thousands of years. Are there places that haven't changed at all? That bear no trace of human activity?

What forest has remained the same? What region, landscape, hill can show a wholly unmodified face? What mountain, even? You start looking. You try various approaches. Approximations and hesitations. There's always a nagging doubt: hasn't agriculture changed everything? Erosion? You may imagine that a particular panorama, taken in the round, has remained identical to what a Stone Age man might have seen. But you're never completely certain. Which leads to disappointment.

There is a solution, close at hand. Put out to sea, until you can no longer see the coast. Nothing has changed here. An identical stretched of water is still there. From time immemorial. What you see was seen by pterodactyls. And it still accounts for almost two-thirds of the globe. In other words, the greater part of the Earth has remained unchanged. Alongside the catastrophes, the earthquakes, the changes wrought by man, the greater part of the planet has retained almost exactly the same appearance, wet and blue, as far as the eye can see.

Draw whatever conclusion you like: a matter for amazement, an object of controversy, a reassuring fact, or a bitter disappointment. The foam endures.

Exorcism by Robert Lowell, The Dolphin (1976)

This morning, as if I were home in Boston, snow,
the pure witchery-bitchery of kindergarten winters;
my window whitens like a movie screen,
glaring, specked, excluding rival outlook--
I can throw what I want on this blank screen,
but only the show already chosen shows:
Melodrama with her stiletto heel
dancing bullet wounds in the parquet.
My words are English, but the plot is hexed:
one man, two women, the common novel plot...
what you love you are...
You can't carry your talent with you like a suitcase.
Don't you dare mail us the love your life denies;
do you really know what you have done?

We have learned over the past eight months that parenthood is not for us.

Say it's urgent, when the flowers have died from a change in the weather.
We have learned, over the past eight months, spouting nectar from the phone
That parenthood is not for us. And we are not the sort to be benefactors.
Tomorrow, on the decade, dawn birds will sing aside the bedroom window,

Reminisce in disposables, our eight months of spitting nectar under the phone.
There is no estimating the number of animals in it, this, our nurturing enterprise.
Tomorrow, on the decade, dawn birds will sing aside our bedroom window,

Winter constellations, steaming traces of afterbirth waft in from the barn window—

And mere labor was not enough for a flight animal, enclosed in the enterprise

As beautiful as surgical staples. With barbed wire, I had wanted all the more tightly
To rein you. Alas, these inexorable constellations. One foreleg advanced over a windowsill
In a vaulting pose—belonging to no one—just like a woman, and the one in front of me,

My successor. An object to be possessed, a porcelain or polymer doll once tightly
Held with the bangs smoothed, lives afterwards when playtime is done.You dully

Spit into the napkin, instead of pushing away the plate, and I, the one in front of me--
Lie awake in the exhaustive flow of keeping on, before the plate glass break of dawn.

The feeling beyond the doll kept from you, screaming alone in a crib—Your teeth dully

Indicate—White prayer beads or, a bandolier rattling through the room of its benefactors.

This lie we had, in order to get an exhaustive flow keeping with the break of dawn,
Refracted through this vase of flowers, that would have died following a change in the weather.

Blonde Redhead (Miranda July)- "Top Ranking"

Me and You Shoes [in the right size]

Relatedness: February 2009 National Geographic

Encantado [for the vernal equinox, zero tilt]

[Inia is the Guarayo Indian word for "dolphin"; the species, geoffrensis, is named for Geoffrey St. Hilaire, who plundered the first zoological specimens from Portugal for Napoleon Bonaparte.]

I repeatedly tasted a dozen of your riverbank footprints with my beak, the dark vines of water
Backcreeping. I reimagine grabbing your arm as I snorkeled up from the floodplain's mirror.
You are traveling in burnished water, in a burnt-out canoe caught in the trees--you were struck

By my pinkness lingering there, the cured color of half a pig's head in saltpeter and pepper.

Backcreeping a coagulated paste of hot pepper that is memory, with minglings of broken mirrors,
I contemplate your face, and I see myself again as a hunched figure in the afternoon, sweat-pasted

With sunburn, where I finally planted my knees. I tell you, the final floating minutes after a pilot exits

Are the few moments of his most important year, where his ankles live on as a scrolling fern in shale.

Avoiding the river taxis, and the questions shot through water of my past, I was a sunburnt, sweat-pasted
Girl, before my arch from shore. I awoke as a rubbery buoy with fins, not grey, like uncut stones still waiting
For their chance at life in a pet cemetery—Racing the water columns over the weathering shales

—Distributing echoes in an estuary, unlike the others, those spitting stagnant water in pipe-fitted fountains.

Girl, your arch reflection from shore, I could wake in. Without the submerged kill routine, the waiting line--
Just as all the others, in their eddies and orbits that strike you, traveling in burnished water in a canoe,
I question toppling. Quite similar to the others—consumed spitting the same in their stagnant fountains,
Your answer's wading in, by the end of it,
_________________________________your riverbank footprints melt into the dark vines of water.

con ogni parola

Con toda palabra...com cada palavra...avec chaque mot...with every word

lhasa de sela - con toda palabra -

Petting an albino bottlenose dolphin (not a boto)

When a dolphin appears in your life, ask yourself, what am I communicating?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/
environment/2008/jun/11/wildlife.conservation1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta35C488dnE

Lost Fish

My heavy step is treacherous in the shallows--
once squinting in the sugared eelgrass for game,
I saw the glass torpedo of a big fish,
power strayed from unilluminating depth,
roaming through the shallows worn to bone.
I was seven, and fished without a hook.
Luckily, mother was still omnipotent--
a battered sky, a more denuded lake,
my heavy rapier trolling rod bent L,
drowned stumps, muskrat hut, my record fish,
its endless waddling outpull like a turtle...
The line snapped, or my knots pulled--I am free
to reach the end of the marriage on my knees.
The mud we stirred sinks in the lap of plenty.

--Robert Lowell

Sad Kermit - Needle in the Hay

This is perfect, if the motions are passé.

Ἀμφιτρίτη, Even So Late

______1_________________________________________________________

Amphitrite, given a third consideration, even so late, catches love's cinder
For a few minutes, until it gains body, and is beaten back in the waves.

The blood brine, combining on her tongue, begins to stick. The salacious cloth,

This is a raw sail, hung out to the wind, before her. She's surfacing on liquid feet

For a few minutes, until she is again a body, beaten back in the waves.
Varied colors and textures of flesh spark an interest, though that was simple enough--
Equipped as a raw sail, hung out to the wind, before her surfacing on liquid feet
She is stuck in a moment of kindness, not least of which the binding effects of kelp

Varied colors, textures provide her spark, though she is simply immaculate enough
To distort their exact proportions, to make up the necessary weight--of water
Winding to snugly fit all the ingredients, creeping stolons anchor tubes, flat sheets of kelp.
Our blue surmise of a story, swallowed up. Her swimmer's shoulders, whittled waist

Distorting her exact proportions, the necessary weight, as though borne on water,
On the breach of the Miocene, she becomes a dolphin, and unable to clasp knife nor net,
Free herself from the story that swallows her up, as it pushes into the past, the wastes
Within a fish with a womb, whose wrinkles of a braincase you have traced in dried silt.

________2_______________________________________________________

On the breach of the Miocene, she becomes a dolphin, unable to clasp knife nor net,
Breaking her melon, not least a blanched heart, and swimming into the aftertaste,
Afterbirth of a fish with a womb, whose wrinkles afterwards live on as tracings in siltShe knows what's happening, or the blackish versions of it, once a principle is held inside.
Slicing thinly and evenly, she finds you, hook and line. You've set out for the leviathan,
Keeping your ear lowered to the water, depending on who is asking, for an echo or aftertaste
Of those edible excuses. (You handed them out to the very young and restless, left reeling inside)
Surely it helps to explain your choice of bait, wielding a clean-cutting blade on slippery decks.

Your ear lowered to the water with peaks like whipped cream--here, an echo, an aftertaste
Of the ferment of your dreams. In the making, an elusive citrus note drawn out, your mouthThis message bottle, this beach, and bottlenosed dolphin leaping onto your slippery deck
And there may be yet, tender to a turn, a wakefulness from which you will never recover.
Yes, the ferment of your dreams, an emphasis on the inaccessible, quenches a mouth
For a few minutes, until it gains body, and is beaten back in the mounting waves.
And there may be yet a tenderness to offer her, a tether, a time-drawn chariot recovered
From a blood brine combing the tongue--tack the salacious sailcloth to find her.

Caption and Captor

Ἀμφιτρίτη Given Third (Cursory) Consideration

TBC--

Amphitrite, in her third consideration, even so late, catches love's cinder--

On her tongue--recalls salt in the blood, the salacious cloth hung out to dry.

Before there were her liquid feet, and their shared fondness for leaping

Between--for some anchor--there was enough narrative taking place on the average
_____________________________________Day, with kelp.

And then the spreading, borne on the breach of the Miocene

She became a dolphin, a fish with a womb, and yet slippery as ever.

Yet unable to clasp knife nor net, she deals the blow, our blue surmise

Of a story swallowed up in her swimmer's shoulders to whittled waist--

Four Delphines struck in some sufferer, Job's coffin.

You are the Perfect Cripple

Your result for The Which Cell Organelle are you? Test...

The ER

You scored 50 Industriousness, 35 Centrality, and 15 Causticity!

You're the Endoplasmic reticulum! The ER modifies proteins, makes macromolecules, and transfers substances throughout the cell. It has its own membrane, and translation of mRNA happens within it.

You tend to have two sides to you - sort of a jekyll and Hyde kind of story. One side of you tends to be rough and tumble, but also very useful. Your other side is less well-defined and slightly more mysterious.

Take The Which Cell Organelle are you? Test at HelloQuizzy

The Future Is Bright.

Self-made Runestone U 201..What I Hear When Moving (iPod Scrolling Disallowed)

The More It Changes...

Models in a Headless Contest: Athena and/or Artemis Excerpts

"As Goddess of the Hunt in pursuit of her chosen quarry, Artemis the Archer could aim for any target, either near or far away, and could know that her arrows would unerringly reach their marks. The Artemis archetype gives women the innate ability to concentrate intensely on whatever is important to her and to be undistracted from her course, either by the needs of others or by competition from others" (49).

"Artemis qualities appear early. Usually an Artemis baby is the one who looks absorbingly at new objects, who is active rather than passive. People often comment on this capacity to concentrate on a self-selected task: 'She has an amazing power of concentration for a two-year-old,' or 'Be careful what you promise her, she's got a mind like an elephant; she won't forget--she'll hold you to it" (54).

"Another common mother-daughter difficulty that Artemis daughters have is with mothers whom they view as passive and weak. Their mothers may have been depressed, victimized by alcohol or a bad marriage, or immature. When they describe their relationships with their mothers, many Artemis daughters in this mother-daughter configuration say, 'I was the parent'" (56).

"The Artemis woman puts effort into work that is of subjective value to her. She is spurred on by competition and undeterred (up to a point) by opposition" (58).

"The lesbian Artemis woman may either have a mirror-image lover, an almost identical-twin relationship, or she may be attracted to a nymphlike, softer, more "feminine" person than herself...She, like her heterosexual equivalent, avoids relationships in which she is contained or dominated by a "parental" partner or in which she herself is expected to play the parent role" (60).

"The Artemis woman is hardly an Earth-Mother type--and being pregnant or nursing a baby will not fulfill her. In fact, pregnancy may be repugnant to the Artemis woman who likes having an athletic, graceful, or boyish figure. She doesn't feel a strong instinctual pull to be a mother (for this, Demeter must be present). Yet she likes children" (64).

"An Artemis woman between the ages of thirty-five and fifty-five may find herself in a midlife crisis if she does not have any other goddess aspects in her life. Artemis is a pattern that is very compatible with a goal-oriented young woman who single-mindedly pursues her self-chosen goal. But in her middle years a shift may occur. Now there are fewer "uncharted wildernesses" for her to explore. She has either succeeded in achieving her targeted goals, reached a plateau, or failed" (65).

"Artemis the goddess roamed through her chosen terrain with company of her own chosing, doing what pleased her. Unlike goddesses who were victimized, Artemis never suffered. However, she did harm others who offended her, or threatened those under her protection. Similarly, the psychological difficulties that characteristically are associated with Artemis women usually cause others to suffer, rather than bringing pain on themselves" (66).

"In the myth of the Calydon Boar, the same Atalanta who raced Hippomenes faced the charging boar with a spear in her hand. The boar had already gored and killed many famous male heroes who had tried to bring it down...She waited until the boar was almost on her, took careful aim, and then threw the spear through an eye (its only vulnerable spot) to hit the mark.

The destructive rage of an Artemis woman can only be stopped by what Atalanta did. The Artemis woman must confront her own destructiveness directly. She must see it as an aspect of herself that she must stop before it consumes her and devastates her relationships.

It takes courage to confront the inner boar...[s]he can no longer feel righteous and powerful" (69).

"Apple 1: Awareness of Time Passing. Early in the race, Hippomenes threw the first golden apple in Atalanta's path. She was drawn to its shining beauty and slowed down to pick it up. ...Reflected back to her, she saw her own face, distorted by the curves of the apple: 'This is how I will look when I grow old.' she thought" (72).

Apple 2: Awareness of the Importance of Love.

Apple 3: Procreative Instinct and Creativity" (73).

"Athena differs from Artemis and Hestia in that she is the virgin goddess who seeks the company of men. Rather than separating or withdrawing, she enjoys being in the midst of male action and power. The virgin goddess element helps her to avoid emotional or sexual entanglements with men, with whom she works closely. She can be companion, colleague or confidante of men without developing erotic feelings or emotional intimacy.

Athena emerged into the company of the Olympians as a fully grown adult. ...The Athena archetype thus represents an older, more mature, version of a virgin goddess than Artemis. Athena's realistic orientation to the world as it is, her pragmatic attitude, her conformity to "adult" (that is, traditionally held) standards, and lack of romanticism or idealism complete this impression of Athena as the epitome of the 'sensible adult'" (79).

"To get ahead, women as well as men need mentors, sponsors, and allies. Intellectual ability alone is usually not enough; tactical and political considerations are involved. What subject Athena studies, teaches, or researches; which campus she settles on; and which department chair or mentor she chooses all play a part in deciding if she will get the grants and positions needed in order to do the work" (81).

"...In real life, a woman friend may be appallled when her Athena companion forgets the importance of their relationship and instead concentrates on winning--sometimes even by deception, revealing a side of her personality that kills the friendship.

A lack of kinship with other women usually began in childhood with their admiration of and affinity to their fathers, and/or with dissimilarity of personality and intellect between themselves and their mothers. This tendency is then compounded by a lack of close female relationships" (90).

"An Athena woman is often angry at the woman who complains, rather than at the man whom the complaint is made. She may blame the female victim for provoking what happened. Or, more typically, like the goddess herself, she is incensed that the woman would make public an action that subjects the man to criticism" (91).

"She likes men as friends or mentors rather than as lovers. Unlike Artemis, she rarely considers sex a recreational sport or adventure. Like an Artemis woman, she needs either Aphrodite or Hera as active archetypes in order for sexuality to become an expression of erotic attraction or emotional commitment.

The lesbian Athena woman has a tendency to have a partner cast in the same mold as herself. They may both be professional women, high achievers who began as colleagues prior to becoming lovers.

In their relationship, lesbian Athena women may admire the other's "heroic" qualities or success, or may be drawn to the other's intellect. Companionship and loyalty, rather than passion, hold them together...[t]hey are likely to keep the homosexual nature of their relationship secret from others. Their relationship is often long-lasting, surviving separations caused by career requirements" (93).

"The Athena woman finds it difficult to deal with either sons or daughters who are easily moved by feelings. The situation is harder, of course, on the children. If they accept her standards, they are likely to grow up devaluing themselves for being crybabies as children, and for being oversensitive as adults. Her practical-mindedness also makes her impatient with a dreamy child who fantasizes.

An Athena mother expects her children to do what is expected of them, to rise above the emotion-evoking events in their lives, and be "good soldiers"--as she is" (97).

"This is why her life lacks intimacy and is often lonely. When a woman is metaphorically wearing Athena's armor with the Medusa aegis on her breastplate, she is not showing any vulnerability. Her well-armored (usually intellectual) defenses are up, and her authority and critical gaze keep others at an emotional distance.

If she is dismayed by the Medusa effect she has on others, an Athena woman would do well to remember that the Gorgon breastplate was something Athena put on and could take off. ...When she becomes aware that she has something to learn from people and something to share with them, and thus is involved as a peer, she will have shed her Gorgon breastplate and the Medusa effect" (103).

"Most dear to Athena of all the crafts was weaving. An Athena businesswoman told me when she took up weaving, 'It's the most calming activity I can think of--I get into the rhythm of the loom, my mind is absorbed and empty at the same time, my hands are busy, and at the end I have a beautiful wall hanging" (104),

What Remains

From Jorie Graham's Swarm

2/18/97

Of my life which I am supposed to give back.
Afterwards.
Having taken part in it.
Every now and then looking up at the moon to see how still.
Supposed to take in and then give back.
Of player of infinite joy.
As if we are inside, for a while.
Along with the gentle lawns of this earth of course.
A sudden rain sweeping the petals along.
And pebbles the rain won't move.
And these bodies someone has put before me.
And this body someone has put me within,
as if its completion,
told to cast spells--oh you know--a look,
the thing preceding you
you then must come upon,
and name--so suddenly.
Underneath, always, the soil that brightens and darkens.
Now refusing you. Later demanding.
But now, now made to live the life entire,
each day snapping shut its eye,
leaning out from the green to whisper--
you too will at last be
free of all trust--
learn the slope, lean into the open spaces, learn the slope,
say no one will take me back,
say I will keep what I have taken from this black earth,
and the sparrows landing, and the small dip of the branch,
and the last village on the highest ridge we came to,
children playing music on their knuckles,
feet skipping, dirt tossed around and then resettling on
________________________________their prints,

where dance steps are
for just a moment longer
___________visible--
the sure-footed already ahead of us on the high mountain pass,
and the great bird in his shelter the sky slowly circling,
and the peaks, up there, shoved up hard
into the weightlessness--
And the instant they are built up into,
and the gone instant, the vector...
A god is smiling in his sleep.
Imprisoned inside him the sleep is smiling in a beseeching
_________________________________solitude.
Inside the instant, inside the mind of the invented ones, our minds,
something like a small fragrance, blooming, so fast, straining and straining
__________________________________________to stay.

Let the loved glance open up and go, too.
Let it spill out and be taken back.
Let it be disavowed.
But let there be something mute left us that cannot go.
Like a god's mouth held shut.
An intake of breath a delay.
So that the everything, tempted, will push on us,
taking our whole freedom--
weeping too, in its small applause, to take us.
All the rest I swear given back whole.
Never again empowered.
Never again a thing that can come shaped
out of a mouth--the world
put in (have I already let it go) the world
taken back out. So rich now, the thoughtless again.
The pillars taken, the roof taken.
The light arch of my belief--
the clay of my space, of my redistribution.
Leave me the thing that will not burn.
Leave me the thing that cannot be thought--I will not
____________________________________think it.

Poem for Hotel Bedroom (1954)

All of us--artists on the move--meet with violent retching as devastating.
As moral illness, and yet we wrench our hearts open. But for this stretch
Of looking out beyond, locks with lever handles opening inwardly, a becoming
That it is gradually more difficult to force, saves yourself, from being a drab consort.

As moral illness, and yet we wrench our hearts open. But for this stretch
This breath-taking view of an age we've only had a single year of, and yet it aches.
That it is gradually more difficult to force, saves yourself, from being a drab consort.
And there is an almost mythic resonance guaranteed to parade your lack.

This breath-taking view of an age we've only had a single year of, and yet it aches.
You still have a scarf rent from the struggle, and I won't detain you a moment longer
And there is an almost mythic resonance guaranteed to parade your lack.
We come up against ourselves, bare bricks exposed. These our excesses make it best.

You still have a scarf rent from the struggle, and I won't detain you a moment longer
From looking into me, from where the vistas are wide and the beasts tractable
We come up against ourselves, bare bricks exposed. These our excesses make it best.
Where we spill our guts, sometimes spilling potted plants, to undress our burden.

From looking into me, from where the vistas are wide and the beasts tractable
Of looking out beyond, locks with lever handles opening inwardly, a becoming
All of us--artists on the move--meet with violent retching as devastating.

..que fors aus ne le sot riens nee.

'Besides (fors) them (aus), no-one else knew (ne le sot riens nee)'.

Uptick By John Ashbery

We were sitting there, and
I made a joke about how
it doesn’t dovetail: time,
one minute running out
faster than the one in front
it catches up to.
That way, I said,
there can be no waste.
Waste is virtually eliminated.

To come back for a few hours to
the present subject, a painting,
looking like it was seen,
half turning around, slightly apprehensive,
but it has to pay attention
to what’s up ahead: a vision.
Therefore poetry dissolves in
brilliant moisture and reads us
to us.
A faint notion. Too many words,
but precious.