Archive for June, 2009
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Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]as time goes by i set back and wonder what could have been.
not knowing what lies ahead and not caring but only wanting to change what has been set in stone.
my memories have faded but not dissipated.
my triumphs have never exceeded my failures except for in my mind.
time crawls by and [...]
Stone Rainbow
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Knocking from Inside Blog
original image courtesy of Carole Nickerson
Collection available! Knocking from Inside
Bottom Wakes
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Knocking from Inside Blog
Bottom. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to
say what dream it was: man is but an ass, if he go
about to expound this dream.
–Midsummer Night’s Dream, IV.i. Wm. Shakespeare
so here I sit:
under a tattered umbrella– no,
it must be the sails of a [...]
The Old Toy Chest
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Knocking from Inside Blog
We had us an old wooden chest
with a lock that had long lost its key.
The toys that we had were the best
that any kid’s playthings could be.
Marbles and Lego blocks
A horsie on springs
Old keys with no locks
and puppets on strings.
The toys that delighted a kid
are worn [...]
Marcel Duchamp and Bob Perelman Stare Back at the Ready Mades
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Ted Burke Blog
Ready mades, an idea from artist Marcel Duchamp idea, a classic Dada gesture he offered with urinals hoisted upon gallery walls, and snow shovels on pedestals. The point , though, was that the object became an aesthetic object, denatured, in a manner of speaking , from its [...]
Nuts
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Ted Burke Blog
“There’s noise and then there is love and then there
are soldiers in Balkan nations staring across old city plazas,
gripping their guns like orchestra batons, astounded that the
limits of their fire power stops with marching orders that tell
them to direct traffic the best they can manage…”
Deke dropped the [...]
MICHAEL JACKSON
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Ted Burke Blog
My girl friend and I listened to Thriller at least three times a day , it seems, while we were in graduate school, and it suffices to say that I don’t care to hear the album too soon or too often. Not that I’m tired of the [...]
Postmodernism in a default position?
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Ted Burke Blog
The accurate statement about Modernists, in general, is that theirs wasn’t a search for the single, unifying meaning, the single, capital ‘Truth’, but rather that human beings have a capacity of breaking old habits and developing new ways of seeing the world outside their skins. There is [...]
John Barth
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Ted Burke Blog
The Night Sea Journey from John Barth’s collection Lost in the Funhouse, is a strange little allegory that plays empty when inspected. As Bill mentioned earlier, the Heritage that’s supposed to be passed on , in this instance, is only a grab bag of superstition, speculation and [...]
Dragon Year
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Knocking from Inside Blog
“What is your sign?” My kinship is: with boats
that race to scarlet drums, their oars like legs
on water-centipedes; with kites afloat
above forbidden cities; pearls or eggs
encysting essence; rulers of the flood;
warden of temples and pavilions;
source of a pigment that resembles blood
which painters use, and call vermilion.
The [...]
Kim Addonizio
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Ted Burke Blog
Taut, sensual, full of direct verbal power that does more than deliver straight talk, Kim Addonizio’s poems can still turn a phrase revealing a desire to be understood and remembered. She is not afraid of being understood, but neither is she the sort to diminish an emotion’s [...]
Love
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Ted Burke Blog
Love is one of our most compelling subjects because it seems to be a form of insanity–a state having everything with attraction and resulting behaviors that contradict any claims of human beings being rational creatures at all times. It goes against the Libertarian ideal that our minds [...]
Looking for a Useful Past
Rating 4.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Ted Burke Blog
Guys like Pynchon and Barthelme are analogous to the Sex Pistols and the Ramones; we owe them a debt, but their art is no longer a relevant response to what is actually happening now.
–from a discussion at Salon,com’s Table Talk forum
Some one you owe a stylistic [...]
Ordinary Dirt
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Raven’s Shadow
Light copper clay
clothes this spirit,
houses this farm girl soul.
No noble-born lady ever walked
in these grass-stained shoes
and cut off jeans
or walked her dog
by the pond
along the muddy field
where buzzards roost
on a barn, waiting
for cows to die.
It wasn’t a beauty queen
who pulled garden weeds
in mid-day heat
while manly sweat
soaked her hair,
dripped [...]
St. Johns Bridge
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Knocking from Inside Blog
They call this Cathedral Park
bu there’s no cathedral, just the bridge–
the one the architect says he liked better than the Golden Gate.
And who am I to argue? There’s no stained glass
but it’ll serve as our cathedral, with its pointed Gothic arches
and the deck, a leap of [...]
In the Groove
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Knocking from Inside Blog
The wheels are spinning madly out of groove,
the horses thrash the chariot through the sky,
their tangled traces need to be cut loose.
Poor Phaeton, he wanted just to move,
to drive his daddy’s big-wheel, make it fly
but couldn’t keep his rhythm in the groove.
Hell of a way to [...]
notes on postmodernism and Fiction
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Ted Burke Blog
Post modern fiction at best is by writers who have a faith beyond their own understanding that the novel will work to their creative convictions–DeLillo, Gaddis, Pynchon, Erikson, Vollmann, Didion and many, many others who’ve tweaked and commented upon the form their using in the execution of [...]
Wind Love
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Knocking from Inside Blog
3 Word Wednesday: Fickle. Sparkle. Wrinkle.
deep-wrinkled willow
shallow sun-sparkling water
fickle wind loves both
Collection available! Knocking from Inside
A Few Short Lines
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Knocking from Inside Blog
Are you there,
Beloved?
Cry of the
Desolate heart.
Eye in the desert,
Flesh telescope—
Gazing beyond
Heaven’s ceiling
Into God’s eye.
Join me.
Know what I know:
Love.
Made flesh, but
Not forever,
Only for a time
Pass through the world
Quietly.
Random movement
Strange encounters.
Truth is nothing you can
Use; but
Valuable nonetheless.
Why? Your limbs sprawl
X-shaped against
Your headstone.
Zero hour.
Alphabet begins again,
Beloved.
Come through the
Desert holding [...]
After Solstice
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Knocking from Inside Blog
too soon yet to notice
the shortening days, but I feel
the light leaving. Waking
late this morning: gnomonic shadows
all along the street proclaiming
it’s later than you think.
Three days of rain and overcast
at Midsummer (or summer’s first day
depending on your calendar),
and the sun returns with no better
counsel than this? [...]
Lines of Sight
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Knocking from Inside Blog
Lines of sight connect new lovers
like high-tension wires from eye to eye—
you feel the sparks.
That’s how a heart discovers
how to navigate an electric sky
like a rising lark
past the gyre where the falcon hovers
through thunder gathering heavy and high
into storming dark.
Lightning scatters below and above her.
Blinded, the [...]
Bic-a-brac
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Ted Burke Blog
The conflation of reason and reason is exactly the kind of writing literature ought to be engaged in, whatever slippery pronoun you desire to append it with. Being neither philosophy, nor science of any stripe, fiction is perfectly suited for writers to mix and match their tones, [...]
Art and Science
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by Ted Burke Blog
Written in response to an email where I was asked what I thought the distinctions between Science and The Arts were. An impossibly broad question to answer succinctly, but I did have a fine time distilling my generalities into three action-packed paragraphs.-tb
_____________
The difference between science and the [...]
How Do You Know When A Poem Is Finished?
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?] Submitted by World Class Poetry Blog
I just wrapped up the finishing touches on the longest poem I’ve ever written. I’ve been tinkering with it now for about three years, off and on. Some of that time has been spent ruminating, not writing, which is still writing.
It’s the kind of poem that [...]
Roots And Wings: On Mentoring Poets
Rating 3.00 out of 5
[?]Submitted by World Class Poetry Blog
Guest Post:
By Elizabeth Kirschner
This is what I’ve been up to lately, mentoring poets of all ages and stages through a program called: Wise Eye: Creating Poetry That Soars. In this way I become the student of words that are not my own while seeking to kindle [...]