Verse 101

"To the right of the mind
of the mammal that is
(that I love as I love of
its songs in its longing)"

two, twenty-two, ancient
but new and green (and Sappho
dead), their Tender
shoots, their hesi-

tation, I count from the tips
of the tops of the keys,
swish go legs in their good jeans
and feet bounce under desk

a nervy turn in unscrewed chairs
attitude of a hip, "fabulous,"
"excellent" speech
I hear despite the debt.

Father sick, mother over-
worked, I am left
to hold the reins, I am Captain
of the ship, or queer

body is, if body acts as body
should, force the will, ye
tank, for goodness sake!
But now, for fifteen minutes

body sits and spirit amuses
asymmetrical, tapped out
beat by beat by beat, uncold,
how I did long for a bird,

and found he wants a song
and praise, sanely like
the Virgin Mary, but oh
honey, we're recovering Christians!

My birthday is Tuesday, February 3, 2004.

Q: What made Mona Lisa smile?
A: Da Vinci was tickling her with a long paintbrush.

"The soul which is not full of love dies a bad death.
(Woe to him for whom the death of the body precedes that of the soul.)"--Simone Weil

I found this excerpt from a poem called "The Retired Architect" by M.B. today:

I tried to complete a life circumstance like a building, loose in space on
used land.

I made a shape against sky on flat land like a cut in the weeds, but I got
bored and didn't finish.

Concrete surfaces need support, and shadows fell like hinges on erasures.

This site is riddled with plastic wood panelling, plastic ducks and
discarded coach lamps.

The iconography doesn't ethically correspond to its cut up and eroded
state.

I make something which as it changes and falls apart, offers no clues to
itself before, as if all shots were mobility frames.

Small daisies grow in the cut, preserving the shape.

Physical significance becomes an area lacking objects, a changing surface
as limit, like the surface and mass of a lake.

Nothing was completed, but there are a lot of sketches.

Actually, I designed two bungalows: the gold leaf, and one later, because
I had missed something.

Gilding was decoration, irrelevant to her private space.

A Light Poem

Beginning again, like children just learning how--
heads tilt to squint and consider.
Will there be more grace arriving?
The bridge of the moment sways as we speak.

I like your look of tenderness, here and gone.
Light feels delicious, a place that smells of cedar.
Beeswax, clementines, papier-mache
and all of the wonderful things we made!

I'm awake with mirth and laughter--I'm talking.
Shiva grins. "Talk to the hands."
Can I make that light permanent?
I am living for the last time.

She'll paint The Red Poppy again;
The poet is not dead.

By Robert Creeley
in collaboration with Francesco Clemente:

The Star

Such space it comes again to be.
A room of such vast possibility,
a depth so great, a way so free.

Life and its person, thinking to find
a company wherewith to keep the time
a peaceful passage, a constant rhyme,

stumble perforce, must lose their way,
know that they go too far to stay
stars in the sky, children at play.