Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Mission Accomplished, Pal. My Molten Yellow & Moonless Bag, Drained, Hangs at Rest

Blogfriend Brad proposes a December reading group for William Gass' Omensetter's Luck, and while I can promise to try to play I can't commit to playing, not because I reread Omensetter last winter but because I can't commit to reading anything right now. I've been toying with ordering Murakami's 1Q84, out today, on kindle, to spark my reading slump's end, but no, I've never found Murakami wondrous, and I wonder if even something new from an author I find wondrous would help.

What's different about this desperate reading slump is that it isn't desperate (even if Berryman broke it, for today at least, the way he thinks in blocks like I think helping), what's different is that not only am I not frantic I'm not desperate, I'm fascinated I'm not desperate. CWCF, strangest days of my life, the first time in my life when novels don't speak to me, seem obsolete and closed. Now, on the other hand:





DREAM SONG 25

Henry, edged, decidedly, made up stories
lighting the past of Henry, of his glorious
present, and his hoaries,
all the bight heals he tamped— —Euphoria,
Mr Bones, euphoria. Fate clobber all.
—Hand me back my crawl,

condign Heaven. Tighten into a ball
elongate & valved Henry. Tuck him peace.
Render him sightless,
or ruin at high rate his crampon focus,
wipe out his need. Reduce him to the rest of us.
—But, Bones, you is that.

—I cannot remember. I am going away.
There was something in my dream about a Cat,
which fought and sang.
Something about a lyre, an island. Unstrung.
Linked to the land at low tide. Cables fray.
Thank you for everything.











DREAM SONG 16

Henry's pelt was put on sundry walls
where it did much resemble Henry and
them persons was delighted.
Especially his long & glowing tail
by all them was admired, and visitors.
They whistled: This is it!

Golden, whilst your frozen daiquiris
whir at midnight, gleams on you his fur
& silky & black.
Mission accomplished, pal.
My molten yellow & moonless bag,
drained, hangs at rest.

Collect in the cold depths barracuda. Ay,
in Sealdah Station some possessionless
children survive to die.
The Chinese communes hum. Two daiquiris
withdrew into a corner of the gorgeous room
and one told the other a lie.


3 comments:

  1. We want Obama to understand that the 99% demand action from him to put communities before corporations and people before profits,” says CCI.

    He can start by firing Geithner (if he did, I'd be so shocked I might fall off my dinosaur).
    ~

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  2. Perhaps Paul Valéry's Dialogues will snap you out of your slump? They are sometimes my remedy.

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  3. I haven't read much Valéry - my issues with poetry in translation the problem. I realized when reading Ashbery's recent translation of Rimbaud that I was being stubbornly stupid. Is there a translation of Valéry you recommend?

    I hope you do the Omensetter experiment. I'm most likely to just lurk, but I'm curious to read what people think of it.

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