Here is a poem I sent to my Dad today. It is from Rilke's
Sonnets to Orpheus:

10 -

The machine threatens all we have gained, so long as it dare
become the tyrant of spirit, rather than its servant.
Rather than let us linger to savor a master's deft care,
it rigidly cuts the stone for structures ever more adamant.

Omnipresent, there is nowhere we might escape, just once,
as, self-lubricating, it rules itself within its silent factory.
It is life itself --convinced of its own omniscience;
with equal resolve able to order, build or destroy.

But for us, existence is still enchanted; in any number
of places, it is still the origin. A playing
of pure forces untouched except by one who kneels in wonder.

Words still serenely approach the unsayable. . .
And music, ever new, out of the most trembling
stones, builds her home in those regions least usable.

*

Notes from Michael Palmer Reading at the UM Business School

(Introduction by Keith Taylor & Linda Gregerson)

He reads from The Lion Bridge

calm, nice tenor.

The curious, mutinous venture in Iraq

12,000+ human beings have been slaughtered.

He reads poem written for Vietnam War.

(voice somewhat hesitant, why I wonder, and then oh
inexpressable sadness I have never known
but is that true)

"Song of the Round Man" is an example of poem
that borrows from children's literature.

Just back from Beloit, Wisconsin Poetry Festival

I have left my head in a Japanese box and cannot see.

We will puff cigars from noon till night as if we were alive.

My eyes have grown hollow like yours.

Orpheus, Euridice, Hermes:
a poem inspired by them.
(O Rilke! There you are)

"Take nothing as yours."

Austere, somewhat, and complex
laments--

See The Anthology of Brazilian Poetry.
See Sao Paulo.
and Mario Andratti, Brazilian poet.

"I do not know English":
Hypnotic, sensual, rapid--

"a naked violinist"

"Breath

it is

white...

not quite

white...

small paintings

all of these

each one the same."

--from The Company of Moths

*

see W.G. Sebald.
see a poem about a Blackbird
(reminiscent of Wallace Stevens, The Beatles, and a children's song about a king and blackbird pie...)
the Blackbird is a Merle.

*

"Have you not noticed how the notes fall through the air onto clouds?"

beautiful.

*

"Stop playing the flaming fool--
How is that done?"

*

"The lyric sings in the war machine."

*

He integrates Spanish words into his poetry.
He reads a wooing poem. a seductive poem:

"Let's drop it all
and head up North
where at least
there's a breeze."

*

"You cannot stop time, but you can smash all the clocks."

*

I liked him very much and if he finds out that I've taken notes on him I hope he will email me. In return I will paint him one of Georgia's Red Poppies.