Traveller’s Guide

Beneath reliquaries of gongs and turbans,

Recall the clatter of marionettes.

Unburden floors with hammocks and bristles;

Renounce no swoon.

Be lucid;

Beware crouching dervishes.

If disturbed,

Exhume the breath of luminous midnights.

Where mandates become faultlines,

Nomads may require new road music.

Snort when doubt persists;

And dine only on hunters and victorious plums.

From Walking The Gobi

Here's an excerpt from Helen Thayer's Walking the Gobi: 1,600 Mile-trek Across a Desert of Hope and Despair:

“On long treks, we’ve found, our sense of time evaporates with the ceaseless miles, and it’s especially easy to lose track of the date. I had worked out a fail-safe solution to this problem on my solo trek to the magnetic North Pole in 1988. Immediately before taking the first step of the day, I would say the time and date aloud to Charlie, my canine companion. He really didn’t care about such matters, but the verbalization imprinted the date on my mind.

“Now, on this journey across the Gobi, Bill and I used the same tactic, in unison, at the start of each day. We also carried a small calendar in the back of our journals to mark off the days at bedtime. We soon understood the nomad’s expansive sense of time. Appointments made on the hour seem nonsensical to a culture that tells time by darkness and daylight, and Westerners’ habit of constantly checking a watch to “be on time” seems an odd, unnecessary habit” (54).

Baudelaire's "Enivrez-Vous" or "Be Drunk":

"Enivrez-Vous"

Il faut être toujours ivre, tout est là ; c'est l'unique question. Pour ne pas sentir l'horrible fardeau du temps qui brise vos épaules et vous penche vers la terre, il faut vous enivrer sans trêve.

Mais de quoi? De vin, de poésie, ou de vertu à votre guise, mais enivrez-vous!

Et si quelquefois, sur les marches d'un palais, sur l'herbe verte d'un fossé, vous vous réveillez, l'ivresse déjà diminuée ou disparue, demandez au vent, à la vague, à l'étoile, à l'oiseau, à l'horloge; à tout ce qui fuit, à tout ce qui gémit, à tout ce qui roule, à tout ce qui chante, à tout ce qui parle, demandez quelle heure il est. Et le vent, la vague, l'étoile, l'oiseau, l'horloge, vous répondront, il est l'heure de s'enivrer ; pour ne pas être les esclaves martyrisés du temps, enivrez-vous, enivrez-vous sans cesse de vin, de poésie, de vertu, à votre guise.

(Les petits poèmes en prose)


***


"Be Drunk"

You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it—it's the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk.

But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.

And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: "It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish."

Translated by Louis Simpson
(From Little Poems in Prose)

Star-Stunned Hollow Drunken Thing

Around and moaning. Everything being too bright. Light in the bag, light in the morning.

Over to a walking, pacing tune.

Dogs heard howling in the night. Stay dim and aware. Truly, truly, crudely drawn things.

Out in the world, things and the enemies of things evaporate.

The universe clings to swimmers’ clothes. Grins scuttle through strings and music strains.

Crumbled seeds. Movement-centered world. In the trees, the sound of windows bending.

Nakedness Is The Great Party

Meet me at the dogrun, Ben.

Because my tongue is hanging out,

And my feet are getting itchy.

Meet me at the dogrun, Ben.

Because I dreamt about trees last night,

And my ears are full of gnats.

Meet me at the dogrun, Ben.

Because I can’t stop smiling,

And barking for volume is the best philosophy.

Meet me at the dogrun, Ben.

Because we’re free to be poorer than dogs,

And being out is living.

Mind With Mind

Pick up little stones, toss them into a great river.

A Good One by Goethe

"Nachtlied-von"

Uber allen Gipfeln ist Ruh,
In allen Wipfeln
Spurest du kaum einen Hauch;
Die Voglein schweigen im Walde.
Warte nur,
Balde ruhest du auch.

***

"Wanderers"

Over all the peaks there is peace,
In all the tree tops
You feel scarecely a breathe of air;
The little birds in the forest are silent.
Wait,
Soon you too will be at rest.

Good Old Abe Lincoln Once Said:

"I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on earth."

And here's where he said it.

You.

You will collect many many lives. & you will live them all. & you will wear out many pants. & skirts & shirts & minds. & you will one day find yourself lost in a wood. & you will laugh about this strange wood, with its wildly bent trees, curling branches which bear no resemblance to your home trees. Even their leaves will be refreshing to look at. & you will sleep in the beds of weird people, wondering what they wonder about, how they see the world, where their minds’ eyes go, what doctrines they have renounced. Imagine how many times you will see yourself, and in what mirrors! Watching your face change & change. & you will sleep many nights listening to the sound of a train. Many trains, planes & deserts without end. & sometime you might find yourself stuck without a car, or money, or phone. Perhaps by a roadside. Perhaps on a far pristine beach. Or on the deck of a ship, at sea for days. You will reflect on the magic of all you have seen, all you have yet to see, all you have yet to know. You will wear out many thoughts, rely on many friends, read the treatises of many night skies, & glittering stories in the pavement of many cities. You will smile at the faces of children whose languages you cannot understand, in parks & on streets with signs you cannot read. You will love & leave countless jobs, pour your whole soul into great, shaping causes. & you will meet the ghosts of people who made you who you are. Or--perhaps more accurately--you will visit the ghosts of your oncenesses. Then, again, you will find incongruent objects & instruments in the drawers & houses of new friends & new lovers, hold them to your ear or eye & listen to their new music, however dissonant. Your youth will last a very long time. You will marvel at the mystery of new lovers’ bodies, & the mystery of your own body made new. This is all as it should be. You will taste the fruits of a hundred countries, distilled into a hundred liquors. They will warm you. You will wonder about your ghosts: Who have they become? & what wor(l)ds? At times, all of this will feel as if you are grasping after air, or after a morning mist. At times it will feel like you know something. Something true & concrete. You will know things. Over & over you will make yourself new, feel the new shiver of a new love, a new range, someone you can learn with. All of this is an again-&-again thing. The landing lights of a thousand airports. The distinct smell of a thousand rains. Meals of a million worlds. Moments of cold stillness & the fear of death. & moments of ecstatic whirling light. Desires met, or perhaps not. Wishes made & unmade. Decade after decade you will extend your hand or open your arms to worried friends. They will do the same. Again & again you will do this. & frequently, one ghost in particular will also think on you. Over & over you will both wonder. Your pasts will be a blur, a mosaic, a retinue of haunted groves, & a tessellation of crowded selves. Dance your present & your séance. & I will dance mine. & what then?

Were You There When The Trees

by Marlowe Daly-Galeano and me

Were you there when the trees
Were passers-by? And then
What did you ask?

What is your name?
Have your knees
Slid or slipped, and to where?

Did crosses or other symbols
Answer?
Was it true?

Did I ever tell you about the game?
How do your hands get around
The shapes and forms

Of a day full of grey-blue birds?
Or was it wormy apples?
Had we become the coffee?

Black and pounding and black and
Did you know it broke my toe?
Was it true?

Is everyone (or anyone) your true love?
Is love?
How will the fish be cooked?

Should we ask when
Or should we let it end without us?
Could we even go back to knees?

Who is it that asks
For me?
It’s us again, and with gusto?

To serve, ¿con ganas?
What grammar serves friendly relations between bodies?
And is it punctual?

Will scientists eat spaghetti, drink pop?
Dare me to ask them about (gravitational) laws?
I dare myself?

Stupid Good Movie:

SLC Punk!

Written and Directed by James Merendino.

The first hour and a half:



And the last ten minutes:

Hold Up.

No, no…wait. It’s all open. The glance and the word open. The dank cask open. Open the pants and open the sex, open Janu Sirsasana, open breast. Open the ligature, open the bind, open the cracks in everything. Open story, open pen. Open the orphan, open the steam fittings. Open the boat, open the road. Open risk. Open time. Open wind open my head. Open my bike, my bikes, my wheels and my skin. Open my teeth open pupils. Open teachers broken knuckles, open arms, open hugs, open ropes open slide, open boat, open Chinese New Year. Gung Hay Fat Choy open open. Open Pope. Open Dalai. Open Naga. Open Snake King. Open Prajñaparamita people and Middle Earth. Open planetary landings and planetary feelings. Open Mercury. Open fish, open silver. Open Ananda. Open legs. Open guise open ruse and shivers and open stairs. Open ascension open fall open regardless. Open hope open misery suffering. Open fooling around in mountain groves. Open green tea and open blue. Open Christmas lights. Open you. Open you. You open? You open. You really need? Open boys open girl open Charley and Foxtrot and Mike. Open Juliet open Foxtrot open John. Open X-Ray, open Jon. Open the headless dance. Open the creeping taboo. Open el retumbo open el chubasco open la caraba open The Nope. Open the last morning with love. Open the last morning with an old love. Open new. New open. Open the hard drive open the shank open the paintbrush open ceiling open camel open Dardanelles open Mongolia open Tuva open scandium open magnesium open canticle open incantation open meditate open hallucination open frost open permafrost open caliche open dirigible open home open toe open toemanship open climb open Deer Park open Bodh Gaya open Kalinga open Shakti open opium open brine open Tiresias open wine open standing room only open back bend open the sheer panties open the hidden case open the box take out the file open the prison cell. Open the kid the letter and the and. Open the And.

Mucho.

The occasion is closed. The dog is closed. The dark is closed. Problem? Closed. Political cartography is closed. Clams is closed. Gates is closed. Closed the storm windows of Oklahoma. Closed the cellar. Mysterious underwater cavern closed. Marsh spirits closed. Closed quick. Closed slow. Closed the election, the gluon, the quark. Closed the collision. The adhesion too. Closed the insertion of forethought, family planning, and government. Highlights is closed. Trampolines. Halloween. The harvest moon. The General Store is closed. Stories. Poems. Celebrity appearances. Cerrado. Mucho cerrado. Chairs is closed. Ruins is closed. Handpainting and rushes to judgment and fake beards is all closed. Nobody is closed. Even mind is closed. Super close and far is closed. Brother and uncle and phone calls is closed. Rum and milk y La Tomatina is closed. Good is closed. So is malo. The uppercut is closed. Closed is the backfist and the drumbeat of war. Closed the whore and the outcast, the coyote, the shofar. Closed is the long slow walk up to Golgotha. Closed is the dung beetle, closed is the id. All and snakes is closed. Nada. The pool. The dojo and the yogin. Burnt offerings are closed. Buffaloes and earthworms and the compass. All direction points closed. The signs is closed. The sun and the summation. Closed. And the the.

Keats's Far-Reaching Dictum: "Negative Capability":

"...several things dove-tailed in my mind, and at once it struck me what quality went to form a Man of Achievement, especially in Literature, and which Shakespeare possessed so enormously - I mean Negative Capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason..."

Bob Perelman: Two Works Worth Working With

"We live on the third world from the sun. Number three. Nobody tells us what to do."
--from "China"

and

"Parataxis and Narrative: The New Sentence in Theory and Practice"

Batten.

We’re living in a pipebomb tidalwave hypno-caffeinated episteme. Gnarly-footed hopheads collude with drunken trustfund kids, while moto-mad redactors connive to salivate in presidential teacups. Early visions of promise are retarded, stretched too thin, then pounded into polvo by perma-cool boots of academic nervous ninnies. Our questions are bad and our answers are worse. Glamour and its shaded emptiness winnow us into yellow pan-seared versions of our sycophantic doppelganging effigies. Early returns do not bode well. In fact it’s cold as hell in hearts of space. And light…well, you know that’s dwindling. Batten, dear hearts, batten. The ride is getting bumpy and our skeletons are soft.

Here's My Intro For Tenney Nathanson From Last Night's Amazing Reading

“I was dreaming when I wrote this, so sue me if I go too fast”
--Prince, "1999"

Tenney Nathanson is much more than a poet and a critic. He is a mind in action. He has written one of the most important books in our time on Walt Whitman, called Whitman’s Presence: Body, Voice and Writing in Leaves of Grass, plus several books of poetry: One Block Over, Erased Art, (Published by Chax Press) and Home On The Range (O Books). Linguistic innovation in his work is fresh, startling, and will help you unknow things.

When I first started listening to Tenney read, I was alarmed and intrigued in a marvelous way, by the wild flow of collage and abstract narrations, and I’d get so happily lost. Now I listen for the way he moves through the various personalities of his phrasings. Whose voices are these? His? Mine? In one listen, I hear a multitude.

In a review of his work, Ron Silliman says, “By now the Whitmanesque line feels far less like Whitman & far more like Nathanson.”

And every line, if you listen carefully, becomes a hyperlink under erasure. Within Tenney’s poetry there is the constant sense that everything is infinitely linkable, infinitely connected. Or not…perhaps it’s infinitely fractured, but endearingly so.

Here’s a bit from the poem “Madame Bovary, The National Enquirer, Capital, and The Hardy Boys, Published For the First Time Together In A Single Volume” from the book Erased Art:

1.

“here is an equivalent stretch of sand
Or an equivalent stretch of sand
To the paper of this word
Fired like glass
Then fired like glass and perused
Wattles everywhere
With splayed mud giving it torsion in parts
Here’s some sand in your glass
Here’s some mud in your eye
As equivalence stretches the breaking point
Like a list including itself as one of its minor items
All had been well with the big engine of its dream”

You see that the words and the voices that motivate them are always moving towards and away from us, always slipping out of and into the framework of art.

Tenney has also done his fair share of cushion work, and has created a drifter poetics that is always grounded by that don’t-know mind. Even though he does know: the academy, the cushion, the koan. Frequently it treks through our desert place, and it always hears voices from all over and under the literary world. This drifted poetics is cozy in the movement of language, and ranges wide. It puts out its Whitmanian thumb and is picked up by Kafka, by Walter Benjamin, by D.T. Suzuki, by Tucson, and New York.

Writing about the content in Tenney’s most recent book, Home on The Range, Ron Silliman says: “I’m reminded of Peter Yates’ great definition of content in music as aesthetic consistency & Nathanson would be an example of the principle. It helps that he has an ear that is continually complicated by an overlay of mind…At that level, [the] poem is one long elaboration of the senses, yet it’s just as deeply embedded in history...It’s a complex production, yet completely governed by desire & its cognates...[and the intertexts] feel less like sources and almost as tho they were angels particular to a given section of the poem.”

I once heard an interview with jazz titan Thelonious Monk, who was asked about the use of silence in his work. Monk replied: “Silence is the loudest thing around but most motherfuckers can’t hear it because it’s moving.”

Tenney’s poetry hears the silences, works with them, brings out what they might say in a language that doesn’t ever let us get complacent. His poems attest to the movement of language, its awareness and unawareness of itself. His books create climactic zones, “musical notes, terns whose peaks as resonances, the different vibrational predications named together, a finer level of matter, the gravitational force there is no explanation” (Home On The Range).

It is a poetry that listens and speaks the body, and the newspaper, and the full range of what we mean when we say “Guatemala!”

His current project, which we will hear some of tonight is “Ghost Snow Falls Through The Void (Globalization)”.

I encourage you to listen to the silences between the multitudes, and you may find listening a new thing altogether. Please welcome my mentor and friend, Tenney Nathanson.

An Old (1998!) Email I sent a Pal:

Tenney Nathanson Reads!

Photo by Tim Peterson.

Tomorrow night (Thursday, 11/13) I will introduce Tucson’s own Tenney Nathanson when he reads poems for the University of Arizona Poetry Center, 8pm at Gallagher Theatre. He’ll be reading with fiction writer and new U of A faculty member Manuel Muñoz. Tenney has written one of the most important books in our time on Walt Whitman, titled Whitman’s Presence: Body, Voice and Writing in Leaves of Grass, plus several amazing books of poetry: One Block Over, Erased Art, and Home On The Range. Linguistic innovations in his work are fresh, startling, and will help you unknow things. His current poetry project is a book length poem called Ghost Snow Falls through the Void (Globalization). He is my mentor and friend and even if he weren't, I'd still say his readings are not to be missed. Especially when he makes animal sounds.

The Overarching Notion

The other day I was asked by someone if there was a theme or an overarching property that acted as a binding force within my book, The Comeback’s Exoskeleton. My answer, its simplicity and accuracy, surprised me. "The overarching notion," I replied, "is the adoration of the cave man’s adoration of animals." I’d say this holds true to most everything I do these days.

Also, there's something slightly terrifying about the compound noun "baby changing station."