Category: poetry alive

Quotation & photograph (Patti Smith).

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Patti Smith, in Interview Magazine, on art and Robert Mapplethorpe:

But the artist has to struggle beneath that canopy, just as we struggled beneath a different canopy—though ours wasn’t as overwhelming. I think that true artists just have to keep doing their work, keep struggling, and keep hold of their vision. Because being a true artist is its own reward. If that’s what you are, then you are always that. You could be locked away in a prison with no way at all to communicate what’s in there, but you’re still an artist. The imagination and the ability to transform is what makes one an artist. So young artists who feel overwhelmed by everything have to almost downscale. They have to go all the way to this kernel and believe in themselves, and that’s what Robert gave me. He believed in that kernel I had, you know, with absolute unconditional belief. And if you believe it, you’ll have that your whole life, through the worst times.

And here’s my favorite picture of Patti Smith:

Read “Just Kids,” people. It is very, very good.

Of course I love this poem (Yusef Komunyakaa).

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Woman, I Got the Blues

I’m sporting a floppy existential sky-blue hat
when we meet in the Museum of Modern Art.

Later, we hold each other
with a gentleness that would crack open
ripe fruit. Then we slow-drag
to Little Willie John, we bebop
to Bird LPs, bloodfunk, lungs paraphrased
till we break each other’s fall.
For us there’s no reason the scorpion
has to become our faith healer.

Sweet Mercy, I worship
the curvature of your ass.
I build an altar in my head.
I kiss your breasts & forget my name.

Woman, I got the blues.
Our shadow on floral wallpaper
struggle with cold-blooded mythologies.
But there’s a stillness in us
like the tip of a magenta mountain.
Half-naked on the living-room floor;
the moon falling through the window
on you like a rapist.

Your breath’s a dewy flower stalk
leaning into sweaty air.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today was a poem.

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Today I saw a chicken on its first day of life. It was yellow and it hid beneath its mother mostly, and I loved it.

Today I saw my favorite bumper sticker. In bold letters, on a back of a truck, the only sticker:

I Love My Wife.

Today I saw Jason and Jenna and Frankie and Ryan and Dorothea and Claire and David and Jessica and Chris and Stephanie and Marshal and JP and Spencer and Jimothy and Stephen and Shanny and Sara and Anita and Scott.

Today a field of wildflowers overlooked by Tijuana saw this:

Today was good.

A list (of of mine).

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things I love today/i love today’s things/ today’s love-things/in love, today’s things/a lovely day for things/things of today (love)/a day of love, a love of things

  • flowers in the canyon, my favorite ones possibly a pea relative
  • talking to my mom twice in one day
  • plans for soup (carrot ginger; “what a mom soup!” sarah exclaimed yesterday in her lavish hotel, 2 beds and 2 glass water bottles, filet of salmon, sparkling water & dessert!)
  • finishing a book in bed (“tales of a city” by amistead maupin)
  • starting a new book at the table
  • plans for tonight that involve misha and i sitting close then standing close then coming home
  • the idea of going home in august, and by home i mean, among other things, ladyfriends
  • the film “aimee and jaguar”
  • katie farris’ little book
  • knowing how to make little books because of art class
  • james schuyler (!)
  • loquats (first of the season eaten today, 2-3 browngold seeds per fruit)
  • sun-n-clouds
  • making up more of these names: may gray. june gloom. july cloud-ie, march starch, august smoggest… (san diegans love a rhyme for clouds)
  • the combination of purple & black
  • sideyard poetry reading coming up…april 22nd in the sideyard, poster to come
  • NPR’s all songs 24/7 music station
  • SARAH KATZ HAS A JOB SARAH KATZ HAS A JOB OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMGOMG

LA poems, 11-15.

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Black tied

Thinking of Paris, France.
Thinking of mangy cats
in garbage piles.
A hair cut can change everything.
*
The Latter

“Do you think we’ll ever stop
becoming ourselves? Maybe
around 40? And then we cruise?
Or will we die at 86 having
come right up next to it?”
*
“Ok can we stop being serious now”

because it’s nearly 4am & late
to be a soldier for the word
“treasure” for the first time in my life,
but goddammit you are such a.
And hardly anyone knows it.
*
World Famous Big Dean’s

This is the first time I’ve wanted
a Coca-Cola this badly in years
*
Boarding

BUY ONE GET ONE FREE!
BUY ONE GET ONE FREE!
yell the kids at the pretzel shop but
don’t we stop needing salt as soon
as it’s offered? Take me to the ocean.

We never know what will save us (Bob Dylan).

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Today it’s The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. Specifically these songs:

Girl from the North Country

Masters of War

A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall

Don’t Think Twice It’s All Right

Oxford Town

Corrina, Corrina

And now I’m thinking about college: about Charles Hartman, and Jen Superson, and Andrew Oedel–about second semester of senior year, when Winged Nike was right outside the window and my refrigerator had only pickles & cheese inside it and my jeans got lost in Sam’s room for so long that when I got them back, they felt new. And dinner was a far walk away but at least we never had to cook it. And we did this on the streets of New London:

Now Andrew’s in his own real band and doesn’t have to pretend anymore. Now Jen is somewhere in NY gesturing excitedly, I’ll bet.

Now I’m in a house that smells of sweetgrass, with a lot of papers all around that mean I’ve done hard work, and also that I have all of it to do. Robert Hughes once said, “The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize.” God I hope so.