4/5 Update: Hope failed to generate much interest for discussion. That’s appropriate. Hope. Is it a wonderful, positive thing? Or is it an empty self-delusion? What does hope mean to you? What part does hope play in your daily existence? pith… wants to know. Here’s the basic definitions and some pithy quotes as fodder for [...]
Tagged Discussion, hopeDear Jack-Be-Nimble, The sky is a particular gray-blue today, and it makes me think of you. Your slate eyes. Venice is, well, all masks and gondolas; I love and need it as I do my own internal organs that I picture crammed to fatal dimensions from a corset as if I were some courtesan fleeing [...]
Tagged Jenny Benjamin-Smith, postcard, proseA piece of a man had broken off in a road. He picked it up and put it in his pocket. As he stooped to pick up another piece he came apart at the waist. His bottom half was still standing. He walked over on his elbows and grabbed the seat of his pants and [...]
Tagged pith... picks, prose poetry, Russell EdsonOh didn’t we dance a puzzle Round the tree when we Danced the way we did In early April when all is Vernal and we needed twigs to Invoke the gods that hovered Near a healthy sprig About a foot or so longer Than needed to produce an Invocation that requires wood Or a cross [...]
Tagged poetry, Scott ZieherIn the morning you lay quiet: melodious digression, the art of deceptive cadences – progressions indecipherable to most – but these bewilderments send me into the day – filled with the notes of our song: our melodies, our transpositions, our compositions. Yesterday we were a bit flat and the accidental surely threw us off. Today: [...]
Tagged jeremy benishek, poetryWoke her up, fucked her, had a cigarette, a cup of coffee, dropped her off, went to work, did some work, went to lunch, did some more work, called her again, picked her up, fucked her, had a cigarette, dropped her off, drove to my house, unlocked my front door, walked in, washed my face, [...]
Tagged jeremy benishek, poetryHell “If you want to understand the social and political history of modern man, study hell.” – Thomas Merton It’s probably like the excitement of your first cigarette, but it lasts forever, that dizzying nausea — the Unknown: with imitation human heads on their buttocks, bats leaping from black books, dragon tails waving, monkey glands [...]
Tagged Peter Johnson, prose poetryOnce upon a time there was an error So ridiculous so minute No one could have paid attention to it It couldn’t stand To see or hear itself It made up all sorts of nonsense Just to prove That it really didn’t exist It imagined a space To fit all its proofs in And time [...]
Tagged Proud Error, Vasko PopaOxygen and bronze— A father’s lilac hideout (Cloud hammer hideaway) (Spade on the table) Not far away enough For oblivion, too close For obscurity— basement Full of paper— upstairs Full of babies— two elemental Beauties by blood and egress By cardinal and garden— Harbored and freed With the finches That nibble Your backyard Bare. 15 [...]
Tagged poetry, Scott ZieherGRISAILLE AND SANGUINE White horses of advertisements, or so— How quickly our habits pass backward— A lucky strike, an arrow central Or a ball spinning proper to the pin— This paper punches, the black on white With splash of red for memory— Every recollection of death And every contention with [...]
Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so. After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns, we ourselves flash and yearn, and moreover my mother told me as a boy (repeatingly) ‘Ever to confess you’re bored means you have no Inner Resources.’ I conclude now I have no inner resources, because I am [...]
Tagged John Berryman, poetryApe You haven’t finished your ape, said mother to father, who had monkey hair and blood on his whiskers. I’ve had enough monkey, cried father. You didn’t eat the hands, and I went to all the trouble to make onion rings for its fingers, said mother. I’ll just nibble on its forehead, and then I’ve [...]
Tagged prose poetry, Russell EdsonBEFORE THE LAW stands a doorkeeper. To this doorkeeper there comes a man from the country and prays for admittance to the Law. But the doorkeeper says that he cannot grant admittance at the moment. The man thinks it over and then asks if he will be allowed in later. “It is possible,” says the [...]
Tagged Kafka, parableThe soap opera organ announces what we can hardly bear to hear. A metal-aproned matron summons the skin ribbons she left on the seat of a Galaxy 500, circa 1969. Her tremolo is a casual torture. We mistake her voice for a choir of a thousand veiled mothers and wobble dutifully in to an Easter [...]
Tagged joesmith, poetryA man with a backbone is dangerously exposed. This explains a shortage. . image © Tony Karp, Techno-Impressionist Museum writing © joesmith, 1998
A voice comes to one in the dark. Imagine. To one on his back in the dark. This he can tell by the pressure on his hind parts and by how the dark changes when he shuts his eyes and again when he opens them again. Only a small part of what is said can [...]
The Origin of Species The Birth of Tragedy The Ascent of Man The Subject of Tragedy The Art of Telling The Story of Art The Art of Living The Dehumanization of Art The Concept of Mind The Art of Argument The Character of Mind The Anatomy of Inquiry The Identity of Man The Moment of [...]
Tagged Uncle HomunculusAfter you’ve gone All the things you are Come back to me It’s almost like being in love But beautiful
jazz that text till it sings till only singing will diminish it till ebb exposes that which only flow has known stones shells bones posing as lasting things memory’s moment knows no present imagines it is as it had been it’s this that’s that scatting riffs best left unsung till home in stillness that absence [...]
Tagged poetry, Rick Krause