Ghazal

I’ll do what I must if I’m bold in real time.
A refugee, I’ll be paroled in real time.

Cool evidence clawed off like shirts of hell-fire?
A former existence untold in real time ...

The one you would choose: Were you led then by him?
What longing, O Yaar, is controlled in real time?

Each syllable sucked under waves of our earth—
The funeral love comes to hold in real time!

They left him alive so that he could be lonely—
The god of small things is not consoled in real time.

Please afterwards empty my pockets of keys—
It’s hell in the city of gold in real time.

God’s angels again are—for Satan!—forlorn.
Salvation was bought but sin sold in real time.

And who is the terrorist, who the victim?
We’ll know if the country is polled in real time.

“Behind a door marked DANGER” are being unwound
the prayers my friend had enscrolled in real time.

The throat of the rearview and sliding down it
the Street of Farewell’s now unrolled in real time.

I heard the incessant dissolving of silk—
I felt my heart growing so old in real time.

Her heart must be ash where her body lies burned.
What hope lets your hands rake the cold in real time?

Now Friend, the Beloved has stolen your words—
Read slowly: The plot will unfold in real time.


-Agha Shahid Ali

The Full Glass Now Empty

1932-2009

Not much more to say than reiterating what a deep loss Mr Updike's passing is to those of us who cherished his work and worth. His last New Yorker essay, The Full Glass is a poignant vestige.

Christmas Folly

I hear the bells on Christmas Day

Their old, familiar carols play,

And wild and sweet

The words repeat

Of Peace on Earth, good will to men!

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Swollen Summer

Afoot and lighthearted I take to the open road, Healthy, free, the world before me, The long brown path before me, leading wherever I choose

............................................

From this hour, freedom! From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines, Going where I list, my own master, total and absolute, Listening to others, and considering well what they say, Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating, Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the hold that would hold me.
Walt Whitman, USA, from Song of the Open Road

When Literature was Savored Slowly- like a Good Meal

There seems to be a renewed interest in "lit-crit" lately which I find encouraging and necessary both to counterbalance the plethora of crud saturating every nook and cranny of online book sales, cult-like Oprah book clubs, self-publishers, mega-chain book stores and frankly overly-inflated, sometimes downright pompous writer-wannabes; or as Seaton writes in his review of Praising It New in the WSJ the "many writers with literary pretensions who are now hyped beyond their merits or neglected in spite of them".

True, the fact that you can find a bombardment of books, clubs, etc. does highlight something positive about a possible increased readership and interest in actual reading, and maybe even more hopeful, a true engagement with the author's work-- but I'm still skeptical. Even I find myself at times drawn to some of the more banal, cliched tripe that is more like fast-food drive-thru gut/mind rot and literally everywhere vs the "source of wisdom and delight" that in the past seemed more the norm, or at least what a writer was striving for, even when dealing with topics/characters of grave intensity and depth.

I feel there is a need for a more penetrating exploration of the written word. A slowing down to actually take in and digest what the writer has skillfully crafted and prepared for the offering. Do you sit graciously at the table and use napkin, fork, spoon and knife? Or do you just devour without a breath in between, a utilitarian taste with no sense of texture, scrambling to just inhale without any discrimination or even some bit of critique and complementary discussion?

Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism is a good reference and counterbalance to read and read again I find, even now. Harold Bloom's foreworded thoughts end quite poignantly:

"If I live long enough, I fully expect individual computers themselves to declare their possession of personality and genius, and to bombard me with the epics and romances of artificial intelligence. In all this proliferation, I hardly will to Frye for comfort and assistance. But, where shall I turn? ... Frye's criticism will survive because it is serious, spiritual, and comprehensive, but not because it is systematic or a manifestation of genius. If Anatomy of Criticism begins to seem a period piece, so does The Sacred Wood of T.S. Eliot. Literary criticism, to survive, must abandon the universities, where "cultural criticism" is a triumphant beast not to be expelled."

Oh... and like with any good meal, don't forget to have an excellent wine in tow!

Moonlit Cove - Albert Pinkham Ryder

Sorrows of the Moon

Tonight the moon dreams in a deeper languidness,

And, like a beauty on her cushions, lies at rest:

While drifting off to sleep, a tentative caress

Seeks, with a gentle hand, the contour of her breast;

As on a crest above her silken avalanche,

Dying, she yields herself to an unending swoon,

And sees a pallid vision everywhere she'd glance,

In the azure sky where blossoms have been strewn.

When sometime, in her weariness, upon her sphere

She might permit herself to sheda furtive tear,

A poet of great piety, a foe of sleep,

Catches in the hollow of his hand that tear,

An opal fragment, iridescent as a star;

Within his heart, far from the sun, it's buried deep.

-Charles Baudelaire

What the Hell is Summer Going to Bring?

The writer's first job is not to have opinions but to tell the truth... and refuse to be an accomplice of lies and misinformation. Literature is the house of nuance and contrariness against the voices of simplification. The job of the writer is to make it harder to believe the mental despoilers. The job of the writer is to make us see the world as it is, full of many different claims and parts and experiences.

It is the job of the writer to depict the realities: the foul realities, the realities of rapture. It is the essence of the wisdom furnished by literature (the plurality of literary achievement) to help us understand that, whatever is happening, something else is always going on.

-Susan Sontag - At the Same Time

_________

"Something else" for me is definitely "going on". Right now its septic-pumps working overtime from the massive downpour that Mother Nature has unleashed.

Remember that brown grass I was griping about awhile back? Well the grass is not brown anymore!

The nasturtiums are blooming and everything is lively and lush. The robins have been utterly in heaven with worm feeding-frenzies out of this world, and it's simultaneously an overload of H2O but at the same time so seeping with Life and deep earthiness that I find myself taking in such deep, long inhales that are quite sensational to my senses.

Summer is officially ended the school year for Kiddies and I'm also left scrambling with ideas of generating extra green of another sort and working on some tidbits of my former art pieces that have suffered neglect (I am thankful our basement has not flooded... but that damn pump is beginning to annoy me!) I'm attempting to be both practical but not have myself getting in over my head, which is what seems to usually happen, then too much-- too much.

So a balancing of getting more things in the ground, some deck construction if dear brother would be so kind to actually complete this season! and some travels to further Clear the Mind and regroup. I've been ruminating on the novel of Chapatis and ..... ?? to get seeded in some shape and form for some time, and I guess this summer should be enough of a kick in the behind to at least commit to some solid writing at least every day so the characters stop screaming to me in my dreams.

c'est ca