Monday Poem--"Philosophy"

Philosophy, I believe,
is the attempt
to justify systematically
the beliefs we already have.
(Just don't ask me
to justify that claim.)

Monday Poem--"Heidegger in Space"

I dreamed last night
of Heidegger in space.
I don’t mean to say
that he was hacking his way
through to the clearing of Being
but rather orbiting the earth
with the space shuttle crew:
the mission’s metaphysician
on call at all hours.
He sits by the portal
and stares outside
mouthing unintelligible truths,
thinking terrible thoughts.
“Das Nichts selbst nichtet”
—he solemnly intones—
and who could not help feeling,
staring out into the endless void,
the immensity of nothingness?
It is that same nothingness
which tightens his throat
and almost brings a tear
to his oracular eye.

Well, the rest of the crew,
as it turns out,
has no use for his
pencil-moustache,
his slinking around,
his dark sayings,
when there are gauges to check,
and tests to run,
and an interstellar lavatory
that must be cleaned.

So, without a word,
they lure him
to the escape pod.
Weary of his drivel,
they strap him in,
eject him into space
and watch in silence as,
still talking,
still taking
the measure
of the fourfold
of Earth and Sky,
Gods and Mortals,
he slowly rolls round
in earth’s diurnal course
already beginning
to forget the dearness
of rocks, and stones, and trees.

Monday Poem--"This Poem Began"

This poem began as a paean to your virtues,
A hymn to your body, brain, and being.
Sparkling images, each coolly reflecting your light,
every phrase and beat a gem your figure had cut.

But by the second stanza something had gone wrong.
The words lay crabbed and stricken on the page,
my thoughts confused, my metaphors limping along,
the whole thing lurching toward disaster.

When suddenly a sly tercet made a virtue of necessity,
my words' impotence became a tribute to your ineffable grace,
and my shortcomings served only to set off your perfection.

But now, at the end, I see irony cannot do you right,
and my words, as before, cannot utter your name,
not even as an absence, not even in failure, not even.

Monday Poem--"Opening the Books"

And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books … (Revelation 20:12)

When the final trumpet sounds,
when the graves yield up their dead,
when almighty Jehovah himself appears
in majesty and splendor,
I wonder what would happen
if He could find no book for you,
just a glossy magazine,
mostly ads,
recipes for holiday leftovers,
tummy-tightening exercises,
and tips for driving your man
wild in bed.

I smile at the thought
and then, with a glow of slow gratitude,
I realize that my own book of life
is no book either
just a perforated insert card
for your magazine,
an advertisement for your advertisements.

Perhaps, I think,
when the final echo
of the final trumpet blast
has faded away
we'll still be together
on a coffee table
of a waiting room
in the clean and quiet office
of the great God
of Heaven and Earth.

Babylon the (Not So) Great

I don't think I ever expected when I chose this career path that I would be dabbling in Babylonian studies. But I guess that's what happens when you work on Borges. I've been writing a book chapter about Borges's story, "The Lottery in Babylon," so I've been up to my eyeballs in Babylonian history and culture. Here's a couplet from a long poem, which, like many Babylonian literary texts, deals with the problem of theodicy in a particularly vivid way. Consider yourself warned.

ina ru-ub-si-ia a-bit ki-ial-pi
ub-tal-lil ki-i immeri (udu.nitá) ina ta-ba-ás-ta-ni-ia

Translation:
I spend the night in my dung like an ox,
And wallow in my excrement like a sheep.

Any questions?

Monday Poem--"Red Patch"

Now suppose that I am looking at a bright red patch.

I may say, "this is my present precept;" I may also say,

"my present precept exists;" but I may not say, "this

exists," becaue the word "exists" is only significant when

applied to a description as opposed to a name. This

disposes of existence as one of the things that the mind

is aware of in objects. (Bertrand Russell, "A History of

Western Philosophy, 1945)





"Red patch, here, now"

I tell the doctor,

rolling up my sleeve,

doing my best

to avoid self-diagnosis.

"Itching, here, now," I add,

trying to elaborate,

which is not to say

that there is, in fact

anything that itches.

For all I know,

my red patch is all in my mind,

in a manner of speaking

(and which emphatically does not imply

that I in fact have a mind).

The doctor, if there is a doctor,

nods, smiles, writes on a pad,

sends me on my way.



"Red patch, not here now,"

I am now relieved to report,

as I open the mail

from the doctor's office.

Drawing the bill

from its envelope

I can't help thinking,

"white patch, here, now,"

wondering if precepts of bills,

like regular ones,

must be paid with regular money

or whether precepts of money

would suffice.

But I, if there is an I,

think not.

Monday Poem--"I Carry My Words"

I carry my words around
like loose change in my pocket.
Spending a few here and there;
getting a few in return;
wishing I had a few more.
But some of them I can’t get rid of.
Like an “x” in Scrabble
or a “q” without a “u,”
no one seems to want them,
although they promise a jackpot
if only the bars, or cherries, or oranges,
would magically line up,
and just the right sentence
would appear for them.
So, I try to slip “pusillanimous” or “avuncular”
into a poem
only to find that,
like Canadian quarters in a vending machine,
they keep coming back,
unwanted, unceremoniously refused,
by readers who know better
than to be taken in
by some clod with a thesaurus.
So, here I am, writing another poem,
trying to persuade you,
munificent lector,
to accept these humble tokens,
to make them your own,
to add them to your menagerie
of pulchritudinous yet otiose gems.
Please, just take the execrable things off my hands.

Monday Poem--"In Praise of small gods"

What ancient system of mythology contained so many as 330 million gods and goddesses? As in mythology, so in chronology, the Hindoos stand unrivaled. Their pantheon is as capacious and extensive as their antiquity is unfathomable and prehistoric.(Shib Chunder Bose, The Hindoos as They Are [1881])

Three hundred and thirty million gods are not enough

for the things I have in mind.

Don't get me wrong:

three hundred and thirty million divinities is nothing to sneeze at.

(Ksupa be praised!)

But in addition to the many faces of Lord Brahma

--creator, self-born, lord of sacrifices--

I have discovered today that the god of artichokes

has not yet been rendered his due:

this garlic-braised artichoke, lightly brushed with lime,

has vanquished my agnosticism forever.

May his name, whatever his name may be, be exalted.

(I had already known that the rosemary chicken was holy.)



And while we are at it, let us light a candle

to the tiny and tender god of these Thursday afternoons,

when the lightest breeze, lofting the lightest hint of lilac

from my neighbor's tree, drifts through my open window,

and a cloud wheels by, and a distant dog barks,

and I can just catch the strains of somebody, somewhere,

playing Bach on the piano, as I sit at the table

and push back my plate, and reflect that I have no need to dream,

for these dear gods accompany me now.

Monday Poem--"Vending Machine"

I have never abused a vending machine of any sort.
Oh, I've given them a gentle nudge a time or two,
when the bag of chips, after I had already paid its ransom,
suddenly changed its mind and broke its own fall
while I could only watch in dismay.
"Okay, then," I once thought, "I'll ransom you again.
Perhaps the brownie above can entice you to drop."
But I hadn't known that you felt so strongly
about staying right where you were.
Then, and only then, did I lean against the glass,
hoping that the two of them, suspended in air,
might be persuaded to tumble down together.
Nothing came of it.
But rather than become a scofflaw,
attacking the machine with a fire extinguisher
and madly scooping up the booty,
I became a philosopher, wandering away
and wondering if this were not a sign
that I was to eat right, exercise, get more sleep.

Now once again I find myself here.
Once again my chips and cookie hang
weightless in space, mocking my naivete,
all but hooting at my simple minded faith
in Hansen Vending Co., trusting them
to keep up their end of the bargain,
to honorably carry out a simple economic transaction
when all that I had asked was to be treated fairly,
with the dignity due
an admittedly doughy, but nevertheless very hungry, man.
And now I feel a shiver of excitement as I look this way and that,
and reach for the brick someone left as a doorstop,
realizing that, for me, a whole new life is about to begin.

Mechanical Verse by Alex

So, Alex figured out an interesting compositional method a while back. He made me promise not to reveal it, but suffice it to say that it isn't completely random. But I think that as stream of consciousness writing it's pretty loose while still maintaining a few connective threads. Here's a recent sample. (I especially like the last few lines, beginning with "once upon..."). André Breton, consider yourself warned.

Defeat consume grouse become less evenly make exchange messages hunt snipe make one’s dwelling business rock-hard-and-abstain from good for you me ingest by Cannibals saliva atom-drop bombs machine-under stand able-dead luggage compartment puzzle out of expressive make a byway of reek of gasconade juice exude gum tree plan under-the-board microphone slum surface sphere of exert influence once upon a fourth dimensioned State Department of the Uniform Commercial Code. Oxygen clock fourth material ownership. State of nature.

Soundless devastation
Warfare
End

April is the Coolest Month...

... at least for poetry. Michelle has spearheaded poetry month activities at the kids' school, including training teachers, preparing lesson materials for them, and encouraging the school to get every student and staff member to memorize at least one poem by month's end. We're all memorizing poems of our own. I'm working on Yeats' "The Second Coming," which is actually bit of a cheat, since I used to have it memorized about ten years ago. I had started out memorizing Yeats' "A Prayer for My Daughter," but at 80 lines, it was too long and I was too wimpy. Then I moved on to his "The Happy Shepherd," all 57 lines of it. Ditto. So, here I am with "The Second Coming," which in addition to being a weird theosophical poem, has the virtue of being only 22 lines long. Alex is memorizing Walt Whitman's "O Captain, my Captain;" Simon memorized "Harriet Tubman" by Eloise Greenfield, and Eva has memorized "Happy Thoughts" by Robert Louis Stevenson. Not to be outdone by her progeny, Michelle is working on "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" by Wordsworth.

I had forgotten until recently that we had videotaped Alex back in 2005, reciting Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening." Enjoy.

A Little "Jumpy," A Robot, and a Strawberry-Eating Machine

Never one to be outdone by her older brothers, Eva is a one-person content provider. She loves art and, as I mentioned in an earlier post, she loves to write as well. A picture of Eva was published in the Springville Herald on April 3: it was taken during the school's Core Knowledge fair. In the photo she is learning how to use a bamboo brush.

Eva is a poetry-writing machine. On command, she will produce verse, unconstrained by the thin tethers of "reality" (and vividly illustrated to boot). I had her write some poems for me yesterday. The first of the three is entitled "Little Jumpy" (the scans aren't too good--click on the image for a better view):


Here's a literal transcription, followed by a translation:

Litl Jumpy
has muny
he stels muny
litl Jumpy loves
muny

[Little Jumpy
Has money
He steals Money
Little Jumpy loves
Money]


Up next: "I have a Robot":

I hav a robot
it gos to the
bath-rom I didint
no that in my
toelit there wus metl
in it
[I have a robot
it goes to the
bathroom I didn't
know that in my
toilet there was metal
in it]



Finally, we have "I Love Strawberries."


I Love Stroberese,

I can nevr
stop eden them
I et them
b cus I am a
mushene tha et them

[I love strawberries.
I can never
stop eating them.
I eat them
Because I am a
Machine that eats them.]


She's not kidding about that one.

When the Wind Blows

Eva has lately taken to writing. She writes notes and letters and makes signs for her bedroom door. We're lucky if we can keep her working in the medium of paper (and not, say, walls, or a computer screen). Her spelling is as creative as her verse. I asked her to write a poem for me last night and the above text is what she came up with, sounding each word out for herself. The result is strangely appealing (if I do say so myself); a kind of e.e. cummings-esque work. The poem is called "win the wind blows" ["When the Wind Blows"]. Here's a transcription, followed by a translation, of sorts.

at nite the
wind blos but
no bute no
amials that are
a sle can not
even the aminols
can good nit
for nao

[At night the
wind blows but
Nobody no
animals that are
asleep cannot
even the animals
can good night
for now].

It's Easy to Complain...

... about living in a cultural desert in Utah. Not that my expectations are especially high, mind you. I'm from Idaho after all. But it's difficult to live in Utah without complaining about the provincialism of local culture. It's almost a pastime here. But that's usually not quite fair. Case in point: last week Michelle and I caught Brad Mehldau and his trio in concert in Salt Lake City and this week we went to a poetry reading by Billy Collins at BYU.

We've been Mehldau fans for five or six years now, ever since my colleague Greg Stallings (a pretty good jazz pianist in his own right) lent me some of his albums. Suffice it to say that anyone who can create both an achingly beautiful interpretation of "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered" and an amazing version of Radiohead's "Exit Music (For a Film)" back to back on the same album has got to be okay. We saw him in Madrid in November of 2004 and were able to see him in Salt Lake City last week. His trio was top-notch: Larry Grenadier, his long-time bassist, accompanied him, along with Jeff Ballard on drums. He played some new tunes, "so new they don't have names yet" as he explained, along with a Thelonius Monk tune (can't remember which), "Countdown" from his first album, and covers of "Baby Plays Around" by Elvis Costello and "Holland" by Sufjan Stevens. Not only are his chops impeccable, Mehldau is always interesting for mining the alt-indie pop world for great songs.

The Billy Collins visit was quite unexpected: on Monday I received an e-mail noting that not only would he be doing a public reading of his poetry on Friday at noon but that he would also be available to meet with faculty and answer questions. Collins was the US Poet Laureate from 2001-2003 and may well be the most widely read American poet since Robert Frost (for a fun animation accompanying his reading of one of his poems, "The Dead," see below). Michelle and I have been big fans of his for quite a while and, given that Michelle is organizing some activities at the kids' school for National Poetry Month in April, we were both thrilled to participate. We both attended the Faculty Q&A (where Michelle could ask him about his views regarding the memorization of poetry, a topic she's been interested in lately) and then the reading itself, which had to have been the biggest such event I've ever seen--I would estimate that somewhere around 1000 people attended and I doubt that anyone was disappointed (see local press here). His poems are always punchy, humorous, and "hospitable" (he doesn't like the word "accessible," which he thinks suggests images of wheelchairs going up ramps). He read a number of poems that we know well, along with some newer ones that haven't yet been published. The line to get signed copies of his work was so long we finally gave up. It's a wonderful problem to have, especially in a "culture desert." Then again, maybe we were just thirsty.