Tuesday, August 30, 2011

To plunge (irresistibly forward)

"Every moment of our life belongs to the present only for a moment"
--Arthur Schopenhauer, On the Vanity of Existence


Every evening we are poorer
by a day

We would perhaps
grow frantic

at the sight of this ebbing

away

of our short

span

of time

were we not
secretly conscious

in the profoundest
depths

of our being that we share

in the inexhaustible
well

of eternity

out of which
we can forever draw

new life

Monday, August 15, 2011

Megitza Quartet



Yesterday, my wife and I saw this band perform at an outdoor festival on the Minneapolis river front and were completely blown away. These You Tube clips don't really do their music justice but, even so, here's another one ...

Friday, August 12, 2011

Last kind words (Geechie Wiley)



Johannes posted this over at Montevidayo (which has become one of my favorite blogs).

Did the song grab your interest? Then go ahead and read the essay that accompanied it: The “Corpse Language” of Geechie Wiley, Ezra Pound and HP Lovecraft (or The Necro-Media of the Image)

Friday, August 5, 2011

Hard times come again no more (Kate & Anna McGarrigle & Friends)



Kate & Anna McGarrigle and friends:
Rufus Wainwright (son of Kate)
Emmylou Harris
Mary Black
Karen Matheson
Rod Paterson

Monday, August 1, 2011

Corps d'esprit

Being substantially different.
How could either domain be said
to cause changes in the other?
Now: examine the disjunction
between mind & body. The penis
swells because the male amygdala
is located in the corpus cavernosum.
The penis swells because her lips
are moist & her eyes are smiling.
The penis is not a person but we call
him Dick. Look! There's the scrambled
man from line 24. His eyes his eyes return
to form, thinking, if I touched her breast
it would be just like stepping into a pool
of skin-deep water. ("Bone up" is a phrase
we can wrap our mind around.) The word
"en-masse" was late for mass, but the diva
delivered her ass. Dipping her brain
in a flute of champagne. The body
lurking there within a dainty skull
unfurls. A thick cloud of battered spirit
fried in boiling grease might prove
as doubtless. The ailment of alimentary
fools. Governor Squirt & his ex-rat
from Mafia Corners: "Who sucked the blood
from my blood-sucking toads?" Along these
lines, tumors come to mind. Craniectomy.
(It don't mean Beijing if it ain't got that bling.)
"Mange, ceci est mon corps, mon corps
d'esprit." Soup du jour? "Primordial." Stiff
as a dick, as old as ass. Hermeneutics
of the rational omniverse. "Foreigners,
countrymen, lend me your nipples."
Wealth & vacuity, stealth & annuities.
(One thing we can always count on.)
The coins the coins reigning from the sky
of mind: a map of our neural pathways.
"She had a dead squirrel / I saw it twirl."
We reasoned with her until she came
in brilliance, crying, "cogito ergo sum!"
(Do wop do wop do wop do wop do wop etc.)
In other words, don't touch me there,
touch me "there." Inkstained multitudes.
This is your bed. "You can lead a horse
to slaughter but you can't make it blink."

Mallarme is Dead (David Michael Walach)



Text and image by David Michael Wolach.
Audio by David Michael Wolach and Tyler Bennett.
Translated from Tyler Bennet, "People of the Book," Slightly West, 2008.
Translation of translation, "To Jabes," first appearing in Crit: A Journal of Poetry, 2008