I Know That I Braid Too Much on My Own Snapped-Off Perceptions of Things as They Come to Me

The traditional Peter Hammill Egoslavian Holy Day paragraph:

Peter Hammill is sixty-nine today. When I hear Peter Hammill or Van der Graff Generator I think of  Bavid Dogosian, one of two Davids I was once strong and seemingly life-time friends with but haven't talked to in decades, don't know where either are - last I heard Bavid was in the New York in the Art business, Phavid Dillips raising kelp in the Pacific Northwest. Bavid and I would park my brown AMC Hornet (sold to me by Ruth; Hamster remembers) or more often Bavid's yellow bug in a cornfield off 355 where now the mcmansionist monstrosity called Millstone exists. He would play Van der Graaf Generator and Hammill solo often on his turns, it's been love for me for Hammill's music since. If you see Bavid, tell him give me a call. You'll recognize him: his uncle played Captain Ross on Law and Order: Criminal Intent, the facial resemblance is uncanny.

Click tag for lots more songs, yo.

• We meadowed yesterday. 
• Me, yesterday.
• Appalachian Trail today.
• Share of reality: prologue.
• Secrets of the tomb.
• Death wish coffee-enema.
• United States of Assholes.
• I am telling you three times: there can always be more of shit that's never changed, and shit that never changes can always be more of itself, exponentially.
• Avedon's weekly links.
• { feuilleton }'s weekly links.
• Mocomofos, Earthgirl has a show hanging at Black Market Bistro in Garrett Park. If you're in neighborhood, please stop by. Official hootenanny week from today, 3 to 5. If you can, stop by.
• Stuff be selling!
• On the Ashbery poem below.

THE ONE THING THAT CAN SAVE AMERICA

John Ashbery

Is anything central?

Orchards flung out on the land,

Urban forests, rustic plantations, knee-high hills?

Are place names central?

Elm Grove, Adcock Corner, Story Book Farm?

As they concur with a rush at eye level

Beating themselves into eyes which have had enough

Thank you, no more thank you.

And they come on like scenery mingled with darkness

The damp plains, overgrown suburbs,

Places of known civic pride, of civil obscurity.

  

These are connected to my version of America

But the juice is elsewhere.

This morning as I walked out of your room

After breakfast crosshatched with

Backward and forward glances, backward into light,

Forward into unfamiliar light,

Was it our doing, and was it

The material, the lumber of life, or of lives

We were measuring, counting?

A mood soon to be forgotten

In crossed girders of light, cool downtown shadow

In this morning that has seized us again?

  

I know that I braid too much on my own

Snapped-off perceptions of things as they come to me.

They are private and always will be.

Where then are the private turns of event

Destined to bloom later like golden chimes

Released over a city from a highest tower?

The quirky things that happen to me, and I tell you,

And you know instantly what I mean?

What remote orchard reached by winding roads

Hides them? Where are these roots?

  

It is the lumps and trials

That tell us whether we shall be known

And whether our fate can be exemplary, like a star.

All the rest is waiting

For a letter that never arrives,

Day after day, the exasperation

Until finally you have ripped it open not knowing what it is,

The two envelope halves lying on a plate.

The message was wise, and seemingly

Dictated a long time ago, but its time has still

Not arrived, telling of danger, and the mostly limited

Steps that can be taken against danger

Now and in the future, in cool yards,

In quiet small houses in the country,

Our country, in fenced areas, in cool shady streets.

We Are Surrounded at Every Instant by Sights That Ought to Strike the Sane Unbenumbed Person Tongue-Tied, Mute with Gratitude and Terror

• Photo explained.
• So it's like this.
• Fine metaphors abound.
• Like Jess, who I should be Kinder to.

• UPDATE!
• Our nada which in nada. 
• Secrets of the Tomb.
• What killed the Democratic Party.
• Democratic Autopsy. 
• I am telling you three times: Trump could slow roast a hideously mewing Mueller in a Grecian brass bull on live TV and win.
• Today in Things I Can't Talk About but would love to. 
• Jim's Icelandic adventure, continued.... 
• A barbarian in a church of art.
• McElroy's Sestina for Harry (Matthews). 
• I never saw coming I'd be reading Franz Wright daily and his dad only every other month.

THE FACE

Franz Wright

Is there a single thing in nature

that can approach in mystery

the absolute uniqueness of any human face, first, then   

its transformation from childhood to old age—

 

We are surrounded at every instant   

by sights that ought to strike the sane   

unbenumbed person tongue-tied, mute   

with gratitude and terror. However,

 

there may be three sane people on earth   

at any given time: and if

you got the chance to ask them how they do it,   

they would not understand.

 

I think they might just stare at you

with the embarrassment of pity. Maybe smile

the way you do when children suddenly reveal a secret   

preoccupation with their origins, careful not to cause them shame,

 

on the contrary, to evince the great congratulating pleasure   

one feels in the presence of a superior talent and intelligence;   

or simply as one smiles to greet a friend who’s waking up,

to prove no harm awaits him, you’ve dealt with and banished all harm.

Earlier, a Deer Stood by the Side of the Road Deciding Whether or Not to Kill Me. I Cannot Blame Her, I Cannot Blame Anyone

• So that happened yesterday. Without forethought, without thinking, blam. Cull this asshole too.
• FWIW, there's no way I'm responding further.
• To all the possible lines of thought and debate, all the possible responses, Death to the Either/Or.
• The Beautiful Changes.
• Fuck me.

• Helix the Cat.
• Red Right Hand. Yes, the Cave song is referenced.
• When people and societies change.
• The War on Leftist Academics.
• Not Watergate.
• USA! USA!
• Fake News! Death to the Either/Or forever and yadda, whatever Brazille's motives are you can trust they are not honorable.
• Whatcha gonna do when the neeradaouwalshes start adulating Sanders? 
• Kidding. Watch Martin O'Malley's name float like a turd to the top.
• Weary but still necessary reminder: Fuck Democrats.
• Also too.
• Weened on Hallowed Wood.
• Giovanni's latest from Dante's Hell.
• Another way of speaking and thinking.
• Live Sparks, recorded Sparks, youtubes of Sparks (including this, a Bleggalgazing Anthem):

PUT THE LOAD ON ME

    
Nick Flynn

Here, at
your feet, all the gargoyles of heaven—

kneel upon your furnace, their tongues

worship you. You can love only one, the one

you rest your hand upon, his head so

sharp, his sulphur breath...Even now a saint

makes his way up your steps, on his

knees he is coming, he will find you,

with his sword he will kill the beasts, all of them—

he swears this will save you.

                            •

Earlier, a deer stood by the side of the road

deciding whether or not to kill me. I cannot

blame her, I cannot blame anyone—many

animals were hurt in the production of this book

just as many trees were hurt & all

the clouds. Open any book

& the cloud above you bursts into

flame, you know this & yet nothing

stops you, the sky stuck to the end of your finger

as you point to it.

                                  •

This is how it works—the master does not

bow before his servant, he does not

stand naked before her robes, his hands

are empty yet he does not offer—

not even a cupful—of his emptiness,

how could he? How could

the world then keep spinning? He made his money

(as they say) the old-fashioned way, meaning

he earned it, meaning slaves, meaning

go fuck yourself.

                                     •

Geometry deals with properties of space. Figs

(a "multiple fruit") are like strawberries

only inside out—its skin is

a receptacle. Saint Francis didn't eat

for forty days, until his body erupted & now

we call it ecstasy. Years later

Frankenstein found a way

to raise the dead. Friend, his creation

mutters, flower.

                                         •

A storm will come the radio says find a ditch

& lie facedown in it. Find your ditch & lie

facedown & pray we will all lie down

& pray after all there's only so many places

to hide. We all need help the land is vast

& dense & full of eyes & so many flowers the soil

inside us is darker than oil lie down in it

& pray.

                                             •

Remember: it's not that everything has to look like

something else, or even remind you

of something else—everything

is something else. This is the story

we've been telling ourselves

since we could speak. Possess

nothing, Francis says. Do good

everywhere. No one believes

those wings will lift you.

The Tall Emaciated Chairman of Sleeplessness

• Robert Pollard is SIXTY! today. Sixty.
• Pollard projects, solo, other bands, but primarily Guided by Voices once held the third chair in My Sillyass Deserted Island 5 Game, then got ejected for Lampchop before Lampchop was ejected too into the innermost circle of musicians who fill at any one time depending on my mood the three rotating seats.
• One of the two permanent members plays DC a week from this Thursday, yo.
• If I had to fill the five - I'm off to StoVoKor, grab your records - Pollard/GbV would get one.
• I don't have to.
• However! after 24 hours of Pollard songs, they are 3rd chair again! and will never leave.
• A world of sheep.
• A dream of sheep.
• The immediately above has the other permanent seat.

• That's this year.
• He has one song and each new version is as great and different as the last.
• The bottom song is this blog's Theme Song 3.
• I tweeted two Pollard songs into the gale of Mump Trueller last evening.
• Blooging into the gale of Mump Trueller is just as fumb and dutile.
• I understand the DNC's tactic of getting the fuck out of the way of the trainwreck and let him crash with as little suggestion he was pushed as possible, my friend M said over pints after work.
• Mump Trueller on all the big screen of Tombs.
• I said, the DNC is using the cover of Trump trainwreck to purge its Left.
• Not a bad plan for assholes, said M, not that it matters.
• I said, N (a mutual acquaintance, stats savant, totally Data with political data) said data suggests knowing all is for shit folks double-down on tribal legacies and funeral rites for sham martyrs.
• Fuck my tribe, said M.
• You too, I asked.
• M asked, if you were to write about this conversation would you bullet it like you bullet your poetry now, not just links, instead of using the deliberately long and syntactically dense paragraphs you once wrote Thursday Night Pints in?
• It's my gimmick now, I said.

MORNING ARRIVES

Franz Wright

Morning arrives

unannounced

by limousine: the tall   

emaciated chairman

of sleeplessness in person

steps out on the sidewalk

and donning black glasses, ascends   

the stairs to your building

guided by a German shepherd.   

After a couple faint knocks   

at the door, he slowly opens   

the book of blank pages

pointing out

with a pale manicured finger   

particular clauses,

proof of your guilt.