poetry notebook

Ventadorn

dirk — Wed, 16 May 2012 00:24:11 +0000

Tuesday, May 15, 2012 17:10 PST, Willits, California

While I sat outside in my patched up pavilion and played a rough version of “Ben m’an perdut…” by Bernart de Ventadorn (PC 70,12 G fol. 14) on the guitar and tried to remember all of the words (my Old Occitan isn’t what it used to be, and it never was), I felt him there. So I said, in a friendly offhand way, as thought it happens all the time, “Ventadorn! This is your kind of day, isn’t it? I mean aside from the trucks.”

Did a breeze kick up or did he say something? It sounded like a wind from a long time ago. Since he arrived during the melody, well, that is, I perceived his presence during the melody, just the guitar by itself, I started playing again. A White Freightliner pulling two trailer loads of 90 pound concrete bags went by and drowned me out. I fumbled and felt him recede and he was gone.

There are several possible explanations for what could have been going on. In fact, there are so many that I don’t even know about all of them. There are probably explanations that have’t even been thought of yet by anybody at all, or that don’t even exist yet (or at all or ever will). I’m not saying any of them needs to be true or correct, but they do need to be explanations. My first thought was that he left because he didn’t like my playing. But it seems he came because of my playing. A young woman walked out of her house and sat on a chair on her front porch and lit a cigarette. She’s wearing sunglasses and very short shorts and skimpy top. It seems as though she is looking directly at me, but I doubt it.

Or maybe Ventadorn wasn’t really there at all. I know that’s what you think. It’s ok, I’ve known Tibetans who said that the first time someone told them about a wrist watch they thought they were being told that which is not true, as the Houyhnhnms put it. But it is possible that he was’t there. She’s walking up and down now. I mean, the entire thing could just have been my imagination. She sat back down and seems to be staring at me. But even if he was imaginary, does that mean he wasn’t real? Let’s face it, it’s been pretty well demonstrated in several cultures now that there is no actual referent for the words we use. Now she went back into the house. Not to mention the differences among languages. That no matter how precise you are, it’s still very low resolution, like Galilleo’s telescope looking at GN-108036. But we take it to be exclusive, “Nope. Can’t see it in my telescope. It doesn’t exist.”

How do I know whether or not the Ventadorn I sensed would feel pain if you cut him? What a question. I don’t even know whether you would feel pain if you cut you. For that matter, it’s possible that I just tell myself a funny story about how much it hurts me to be cut and that there isn’t actually anyone there to be hurt anyway. Oh, I see, you’re playing the odds. Ok. Pascal and all that. But wait. You’re saying that only empirically demonstrable things exist and that’s going with the odds? Hmmmm….

In any case, I was playing his song and singing his poem and I felt him. Yes. He was definitely there. No doubt about it. I felt him. He was there. But there are other explanations, of course.

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Cut Ties

dirk — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 20:34:38 +0000

Prometheus: I established blind hope in them.

Prometheus Bound (Attributed to Aeschylus)

When he cut ties

Thought

One might say “stay.”

If one noticed

None said.

At first, pain.

Just convenient,

As suspected.

Hope

Lingered,

Smoke smell

Long after fire.

He, for those

Won’t miss him?

Tears

Pass.

Potential

Returns.

Zero Divided By One

dirk — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 00:35:28 +0000

Not good enough

At anything

Ever.

Too much drift,

Too many ex lovers,

Too many words.

Brief life.

Good.

Note 156: How to Work Faster

dirk — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 02:30:39 +0000

Factories fascinated him. He read management magazines.

He lived in a manufactured world, everything

He touched was mass produced. In a factory.

After the eye was gone, it was time to get a job.

“You can’t do this job with one eye.” said the guy

Who did the hiring. “Give me three days.

If you don’t want me then, I’ll leave and admit it.

I can do the job.”

He had no idea what the job was.

Electronic substrate silk-sceen printing

For digital clocks and watch faces.

Must have been 1975. Digital clocks

And watches just hitting the market.

Slate black chips, electronic circuit

Lines in silver or gold paint on one side

Rows of eights in brighter ink on the other.

“3,000 chips a night.”

Night shift. Squeegee the screen.

Place chip on platen. Step on pedal.

Take chip from platen, carefully –

Don’t smear it. Use a spatula. Put the chip

On the conveyor belt between you

And woman on identical machine

Bakes for a few feet and drops three inches

15 feet away where inspectors

Seek broken lines

Through fluorescent ring around

The magnifying center glass.

Everyone had to produce. Everyone had

To inspect. Rotation. He couldn’t see

Fast enough. Then he noticed.

It’s a pattern. To look for imperfections

Is the long way home. Look instead for

Perfect patterns. Remove imperfect patterns.

Inspecting sped up. Errors ebbed.

But it was the machines. The sound patterns.

The rhythm. He sped the tempo,

To keep from getting bored

And to blot out the radio less

Like music than like someone

Shouting out the time.

The machine fused with him.

He often awoke believing he’d fallen

Asleep at work at the Machine

He could play like a drum kit.

Tempo expansion. Syncopation.

By the time his output hit 12,000 he wanted

To scream. He went to the office.

“I quit.” They said, “We’ll double your pay.”

He said, “Too late, I can’t take it.”

Of course, he just turned around and got a job

In a different factory. Jet airplane filters.

But that is a different story entirely.

And he hadn’t yet learned that there are ways

That are neither numbness nor insanity

To engage with seemingly infinite repetition.

Note 155: This and That

dirk — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 01:26:56 +0000

Bartok and Mingus

II B.S. and Concerto for Orchestra complete one another. ~Anonymous

Each

Makes me

Want

The other.

Same Numbers Back

15. The number of steps for a complete breath cycle

When I was a runner

If I ran faster, I breathed faster

If I breathed faster, I ran faster

When I was 15.

44. Is a different thing altogether.

Henry Aaron’s first year in the Majors

Was the year I was born baby October

In 67 on a baseball card:

as number 44

he’d hit 44 HRs in 3 seasons

Clinched him favorite,

Yet he was obscure

In Southern California.

44 repeats

Healdsburg often

04:44 in red

Did you hear? 2′s a Voodoo power number

Why Hatian boss man’s license plate is 222

But 44 blows that away (Remington)

When he was 44 the 2nd year after 755

And asses tearing him down for Babe Ruth

Was… is… just more Selma 65.

Imaginary numbers became difficult

In about ’74 after I hit my head

When a GP taught me a mantra to recite

A million times. The strange thing

is the use of “i” for the square root of -1.

Imaginary indeed, and spelled in the manner of Cummings

his first use of lower case first personal pronoun

in print 23 I think it was, 2 before XLI and 3 before is 5

Titusville in 62 when a Titan exploded at dusk

A kid standing on a swing thought, “this is it

This is the end of the world

They’re always talking about.

And the death counts on Cronkite

With George Wallace and Werner Von Braun

In Alabama for the Apollo show

Soon to be in a theater near you

T.V. anyway. But how many years

Was Viet Nam a U.S. occupation?

How many years Iraq?

Note 154: In the Mean Time

dirk — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 20:05:00 +0000

…that one day

Not long from now

I’ll be no more

Than passing thoughts…

…Crab nebula

Unmoved…

Jammed roads…

Sun rise

Sun set…

…All I am

And love

Gone

From me…

Intestinal carcenoma

For this gentle cat

Whose two-toned talk

Leaned against my leg

That last night under frosted

Stars mom was still

Partly coherent

On the cell convinced

Me to find her a home

So called her “Lucky”

Temporarily

For evading the neighbor’s

Rifle, the one they kill

Pigs with, and black tailed

Deer and bears, in season, then

Just passed, and cats

If they see ‘em but I kept her

And she’s stuck with the name.

Now the vet wants to kill her

And she’s still not ready to go

Soft belly up for touch

Happy always just to be

With me and I won’t

Force her…

Should I go, too,

Late April, May, so that…

Should someone care

Longer days shorter

Nights growing buds and

Leaves…

…rivers crested…

Transient skies…

…oceans…

Note 153: So this is it…

dirk — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 08:30:54 +0000

This is what I wished for when

Very young when they’d smile at me and say

Oh, what a pretty girl — thought pretty girl

Or ugly girl you’re trying to cheer up

Even 10 or 12 years later Robert Welch

(Not John Birch himself) after he failed

To see similarities Russian neighborhoods

Freedom fighters he called them

Throwing Molotov cocktails at tanks

Had with Watts was it ’71?

The young lady in the 3rd row

He said

And didn’t like my question.

Yes, that’s it

I wanted to be my projection

Of Sarge on “Combat!” — brave

In harsh lights and bright

Smells, not continuously flooding

With feeling skin and ears

And why they worried

That I might be too polite but back then

People hadn’t started scaring me yet

With violence and hate

Rather I hadn’t yet begun

To torment myself with puberty

Already I wanted

Tough skin, actual callus

Bark, shield, palace, condom,

Magic circle, mantic formulae

Procaine, insulation, shade —

Not realizing that Bartok’s fourth

Would never sound more fully

Than it would have then

Had I known it existed

and sat down and listened

On the one hand

dirk — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 05:40:34 +0000

For in one way the pro and the other way con

What is it you’re going to call yourself?

No matter which way you soar

Up into the air or down into a canyon

The soaring of falling, the falling of flight

“You are” – “I am” – this

Box, mostly invisible but certain

In that delerious way, your impression

Upon others and theirs upon you.

That judgment jettisoned with the other

Would bring a miniscule improvement

To the turmoil we were born to live with

A grain of sand in the Santa Cruz sand dunes

And the dunes are nothing but grains of sand

Each breath could be fully aware

If it were.

Sometimes you think you’re so brilliant

Sometimes you think you’re so dull

Jumping judgment to judgment

From branch to branch.

Does matter?

begun while listening 1 1 2011

dirk — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 06:28:38 +0000

In the driven plasma this moment secretes

The pulsating rectitude of your face in a glass

Two violins chased by viola and cello

Spill out onto the night frost and steam

Your torpor declines engagement

With millions of little white birds

You believe have devoured you

Though you must decide whether to begrudge

Or rejoice in their enjoyment

Of what little was left of your body

Washed ashore so many times

Animal driftwood with pulse

Blasting forward and on through zero visibility

With the aid of various machines

That imitate sentience

Can even write intelligible sentences

Which seems to be beyond your grasp

Within all these prototype

Cataclysmic events: big bangs

Cyclonic bursts exploding volcanoes

Eroded and rained on for 5,000 years

So you can visit the park (Gorgeous!)

If you’re not too tired too jaded

Too dull in sense and perception

The visible nearly zero

Yet none of it escapes departs from

What it is or where it is or the fact

That container and contained

Don’t exist in the relationship

Implied by their bifurcation

So there are no referents

And — QED — in the modality of speech

Nothing given voice to exists.

Note 150: Lines Found in Montgomery Woods, 12-31-2010

dirk — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 02:59:17 +0000

What was

What was between you and me

What wasn’t

What wasn’t between you and me

What is what isn’t

Between me and you

The abstraction

The memory

Of what we were

And were not

Identities of questionable province

With or without papers

Histrionics tears love

Laughter

[...]

Yes officer I assure you

That’s her

How do you know?

Her voice

And who are you?

Why don’t you ask her?

These trees the whole time

Before then until we’re both gone

Whoever it is we are

Or are not

Fire logging new erosions

New destruction, yet here

With or without

Clinical diagnosis

Before Columbus

And here after everyone we know

Dissociative

Hyper associative

Never the same

When we touch

Who we are who we were

This shape the water makes

Made by which water?

Liquid fingerprint

By whom made this pattern

Identity

Individual?

What you want

What I want

Expanses

Framed conceptually

Fed back pruned

Elaborated into minimalist projects

Much of the year the ground is dry

The rest in flood

This says nothing

There’s much to be said

As the air chills

And my fingers shake

There’s nothing to say

Does this redwood before me

Speak so slowly

It sounds like my own mind?

If this water touched nothing

Yet flowed in this shape

What sound would it make?