Pray eight times each day. Repeat.
Matins
Lauds
Prime
Tierce
Sext
None
Vespers
Compline
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Whoso List to Learn Pro Tools
Had better have more patience than I do mostly but at last it's coming along. I set myself a silly project so that I would have something to work towards and lo, after some procrastination and crashing through the forest, it has come to fruition. Some mix levels could be better but on the whole I will call it a good first effort.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Winter
The storm bashing its head outside my window is heavy with innumerable small deaths. I imagine the rain as a fleet of kamikaze droplets. Each dashes its insides to pieces against the glass leaving watery entrails smeared in rivers that slide and then run to the ground. Hard by in the woods full of the nodding of albino reads there are imaginary Squirrel Nutkins tumbling freely inside a cold coat made of winter. It is buttoned with the shells of chestnut and acorn, lined with decayed mushroom's chitinous rinds and stuffed full with the withered hands of dried leaves.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Museo Nazionale del Cinema
Strange it is to wake up in a dream but perhaps stranger still to enter one while still walking in the waking world. I had a similar feeling, a cousin trice removed maybe, when I stepped indoors that I was not setting foot indoors as much as in doors, I mean into the interior spaces that are at once an expression of the exterior space and not their opposite at all. Giggling fingers were turning like butterflies beating their wings through twisting paths of time, leaving Rorschach impressions on the walls. They spoke in strange languages but not to me. A gigantic lizard loomed on a launching pad to the night sky, open mouthed and comical as a bumpkin in a barnyard. And I was not afraid but entranced by its strangeness when it leaned down to kiss the top if my bent head. And there too was a daguerreotype of a leopard wearing breeches and I saw you (yes you!) rowing the gondola in the magic lantern full of gilded light. Walls spoke and moved and on a tawdry bed or red velvet I slept, awoke with the memory of dreams erotic and terrible and then forgot that I had slept at all.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
And so it doth today
There was once a strange meeting on a beach where rain made abbreviated rivers to swell the waves.
And we there were luminous too though ill-content for we found ourselves in a hole created by our own weight. All the water in the world was at our feet but, Tantalus like, it could not give us to drink or ever mount high enough to buoy our floundered corpuses out of the depression, nor bear us upside down, like a snuffed candle, going out with the tide.
And we there were luminous too though ill-content for we found ourselves in a hole created by our own weight. All the water in the world was at our feet but, Tantalus like, it could not give us to drink or ever mount high enough to buoy our floundered corpuses out of the depression, nor bear us upside down, like a snuffed candle, going out with the tide.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Lvice
Something leonine is stalking through the meads of summer. A giant apartment complex lurks on the edges of the suburban savanna and saliva drips from its gills. It is baked, beached and chlorinated, longing for rain or for (a) pride to come devour it whole.
In another life it was a teaming commune, an Amazon of Amazons, a multiverse of human verses where people grew tall and strong without fear. But that was long ago.
But I should therefore put these living fantasies to wrest and lay my head on some moist Austrian hillock where cotton shrouds and grass stained knees are the gifts of childhood. There is contentment writ large and full in the mist of late morning. The pyparii are turning golden on the tree stems preparing themselves for palimpsest and girls of 16 are pages to write on.
In another life it was a teaming commune, an Amazon of Amazons, a multiverse of human verses where people grew tall and strong without fear. But that was long ago.
But I should therefore put these living fantasies to wrest and lay my head on some moist Austrian hillock where cotton shrouds and grass stained knees are the gifts of childhood. There is contentment writ large and full in the mist of late morning. The pyparii are turning golden on the tree stems preparing themselves for palimpsest and girls of 16 are pages to write on.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
Prague Groteque
The fun house's up the hill but not nearly as creepy as one would hope. There are smiling children and ice cream cones where rictus devil's dung should grace their young tongues. Only the labyrinth of mirrors manages not to disappoint. Base desires decorate the wall here and series of homunculi parade around, their heads distended and genitals exposed. One cannot but suppose that it is fitting that the stomach be so belled and gaseous and that the arms are shrunken in proportion of to our thoughts. The glasses are old and wavery, like flutes spilling over with too much champagne, that is if the champagne was laced with paragoric, sidling into your bowls and turning them into glaciated flows. Under the light there a blond child gazes at her aqueous hair flaring into an areola. She looks like carillions should look, if carillions had a youth and the youth wore patent leather.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Re-reading The Pillow Book
{146} Things with terrifying names-
River deeps. Mountain caves. 'Scale board' walls. Iron. Clods. Thunder-not just the name, but the thing itself is extremely terrifying. Gales. Ominous clouds. Comets. 'Arm-umbrella' rain. The Wilds.
Robbery is terrifying in every way. Violent monks are very terrifying indeed. So are Kanamochi. Living spirit possession. The snake berry. Devil fern. Devil vine. Thorn bushes. Chinese bamboo. Roasted charcoal. A bull-demon. Anchors-the sight of one is more terrifying than its name.
{242} Things that no one notices-
All the inauspicious days. The aging of people's mothers.
Sei Shonagon
River deeps. Mountain caves. 'Scale board' walls. Iron. Clods. Thunder-not just the name, but the thing itself is extremely terrifying. Gales. Ominous clouds. Comets. 'Arm-umbrella' rain. The Wilds.
Robbery is terrifying in every way. Violent monks are very terrifying indeed. So are Kanamochi. Living spirit possession. The snake berry. Devil fern. Devil vine. Thorn bushes. Chinese bamboo. Roasted charcoal. A bull-demon. Anchors-the sight of one is more terrifying than its name.
{242} Things that no one notices-
All the inauspicious days. The aging of people's mothers.
Sei Shonagon
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Arias of Love and Death
I've read some of these before but this poem seems particularly well suited to being rendered as a comic. It's got that nice narrative-sketched-so-perfectly-in-a-few-brief-lines form that the two media so obviously have in common.
If Dr. Seuss was 23 and lived in a brownstone in Williamsburg, he might sound like this.
If Dr. Seuss was 23 and lived in a brownstone in Williamsburg, he might sound like this.
Monday, July 28, 2008
The waker goose; the cuckoo ever unkind; the popinjay, full of delicacy
Black clouds are in the east like an ominous Parliament of Foules. And I've got my impermeables ready for the downpour. Hunkering down is like returning to the same sweetness seven days a week or sticking your face into an upturned umbrella, dark, stuffy and comfortable.
But woah Nelly! I'm at it again. Brains unwinding like a spool or thread or a skipping record, "sometimes behave so strangely" (ad infinatum). I'm old behind my time in the ways of you post-modern performance artists and post-post modern hunky-a-burning tire boys.
Instead of living outright, I dream I am a superhero's slave. Black cape, bondage gear and the rest. Top spin on the table during a convocation of murderers. I will kill you with the extreme end of my knife-blade fan.
But woah Nelly! I'm at it again. Brains unwinding like a spool or thread or a skipping record, "sometimes behave so strangely" (ad infinatum). I'm old behind my time in the ways of you post-modern performance artists and post-post modern hunky-a-burning tire boys.
Instead of living outright, I dream I am a superhero's slave. Black cape, bondage gear and the rest. Top spin on the table during a convocation of murderers. I will kill you with the extreme end of my knife-blade fan.
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Pean
Oh you, Warm Winds blow me to the Dog star and there, staring Sirius and tired, make me a crown of Cassiopeia threads. I'll dance Sursaute d'Allemagne around smoking mineral springs and inhale your oracular fumes.
While you were in the bathtub I was out howling at the moon.
While you were in the bathtub I was out howling at the moon.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Rosa est rosa est rosa
May is a lusty month and now it has almost in the Ram it's entire course y-ronne. In my experience, these days are commonly packed with disbelief and that y-ronne amok-ness that comes with the first smecking of summer: a relief and a source of frantic anxiety all it's own. And occasionally I feel wondrous in that true slapped-by-a-Deity sense that comes with spring time when everything is impossible and you're sure that flowers are steaming in color. Isn't walking out the door in a way like being shocked by multi-lingual homophones (who knew that "one" and "very" would cross the Arabian Gulf into a Czech-Arabic delicious mouthfeel pronounced trippingly on the tongue?) or is that just me?
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
“A process of self-obliteration conducted by an effort of the will. Pleasure bordering on almost unendurable ecstasy. ...”
Tobacco's in the Persian slipper along with some harder narcotics.
(Aorists on the brain. Sackbut. The fall of the Scythian)
I take lessons from a craggy man in the lost art of forgetfulness.
(Hemlock umbels. slithey toves. Mongol 'ordes. Naru.)
We learn: Thoughts are paper cups (so facile to crumple and throw in a bin) and each meme an island in the archipelago. Letting go is as easy as being swallowed by the sea.
(Hashassination. Timesis. You abso-fucking-loutely sometimes behave so strangely)
But there are long establish trade routes and every skein of Lorbarnery silk has a name.
I am a poor student.
(Aorists on the brain. Sackbut. The fall of the Scythian)
I take lessons from a craggy man in the lost art of forgetfulness.
(Hemlock umbels. slithey toves. Mongol 'ordes. Naru.)
We learn: Thoughts are paper cups (so facile to crumple and throw in a bin) and each meme an island in the archipelago. Letting go is as easy as being swallowed by the sea.
(Hashassination. Timesis. You abso-fucking-loutely sometimes behave so strangely)
But there are long establish trade routes and every skein of Lorbarnery silk has a name.
I am a poor student.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
I'm happy you don't like me
Still here, and semi-animate in a nudibranch sort of way.
I apparently needed two months to recover from a month of poetry.
But here I am again with attendant trumpets and swords a-waving.
It's not even May but things are hot and lusty already. Perhaps the heat will drive me to prosery. It is a thing devoutly to be wished.
I apparently needed two months to recover from a month of poetry.
But here I am again with attendant trumpets and swords a-waving.
It's not even May but things are hot and lusty already. Perhaps the heat will drive me to prosery. It is a thing devoutly to be wished.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Day the whatever
Oscar Wilde- "The Grave of Shelley"
Out in the long grass I am peering moodily into a limpid pool. There are faces in the water and dandies lurking in the shrubbery.
Oh and there's R on the avenue furtively groping some faux-Praxitelian marble. She looks adorable, don't you think?
My locus amoeus is now complete.
Out in the long grass I am peering moodily into a limpid pool. There are faces in the water and dandies lurking in the shrubbery.
Oh and there's R on the avenue furtively groping some faux-Praxitelian marble. She looks adorable, don't you think?
My locus amoeus is now complete.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Day the 21st
John Ashbery - "The Picture of Little J.A. in a Prospect of Flowers" - I
To my sadness I could not present the poem in its entirely but you can find it here.
And please note, if you will the cross-cultural poetic transposition on stage left.
We are such clever children and we aim to please.
Next door, R gives us some aphorisms to love by. I'll pack them in my bag when I go wandering.
To my sadness I could not present the poem in its entirely but you can find it here.
And please note, if you will the cross-cultural poetic transposition on stage left.
We are such clever children and we aim to please.
Next door, R gives us some aphorisms to love by. I'll pack them in my bag when I go wandering.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Day 19
H.D.- "At Baia"
Flowers and letters that say nothing and imply everything and love that acts upon objects rather than people. It's like a love affair done up as a still-life in oil, utterly beautiful and tragically immobile. An enthusiastic osculation to you, Hilda.
And a double whammy from R who plucks from her own field of blooms some Marvell and Blake for your enjoyment.
Flowers and letters that say nothing and imply everything and love that acts upon objects rather than people. It's like a love affair done up as a still-life in oil, utterly beautiful and tragically immobile. An enthusiastic osculation to you, Hilda.
And a double whammy from R who plucks from her own field of blooms some Marvell and Blake for your enjoyment.
Monday, February 18, 2008
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Day 15
Andrew Marvell - The Mower to the Glo-Worms
Poetry for a summer's night but we're still languishing in February. This is the next best thing I s'pose.
R lilts Armantrout in Translation, which, with her cryptic taxonomies, is sorely needed.
Poetry for a summer's night but we're still languishing in February. This is the next best thing I s'pose.
R lilts Armantrout in Translation, which, with her cryptic taxonomies, is sorely needed.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Day the 13th
But again a day late.
R is experimenting in onomatopoetic stasis. Listen closely and you might hear all afternoon the gramaphone.
Rae Armantrout- Covers
A happy Lupercalia to you all.
R is experimenting in onomatopoetic stasis. Listen closely and you might hear all afternoon the gramaphone.
Rae Armantrout- Covers
A happy Lupercalia to you all.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Ninth Day
Actually, I'm a day behind. Sorry, my tender flotsam, but another post tomorrow je vous promis.
Now enjoy--
Elizabeth Bishop-- "The Electric Storm" (with attendant crashings in the background and dramatic hesitation)
And R somnabulates a lovely berceuse next door.
Now enjoy--
Elizabeth Bishop-- "The Electric Storm" (with attendant crashings in the background and dramatic hesitation)
And R somnabulates a lovely berceuse next door.
Friday, February 8, 2008
Day the 7th
creeping stealthily with eight-toed paws--listen here to R's mellifluous growing.
And now for something completely different.
John Keats - Lines on the Mermaid Tavern
And now for something completely different.
John Keats - Lines on the Mermaid Tavern
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Cinqieme Jour
Charles Baudelaire- "Sed Non Satiata"
We thought you'd enjoy at least one day of la poesie fracophone. Listen in to R's most skillful venery and stay tuned for a compliment to M. Baudelaire tomorrow.
a bien tot, mes petits choux
___
Later:
Thanks to my partner in crime for providing a translation. You're right darling, the words are too delicious not to be appreciated by non Francophones. I am shamed in to doing likewise.
In (mostly acurate) and literal translation
Sed Non Satiata- Never Satisfied- or as one translation has it- Unslakable Lust
Strange deity, brown as the nights,
whose scent is mixed musk and Havana,
work of some obi, Faust of the savanna,
sorceress of ebony thighs, child of black midnights.
I prefer to faithfulness, to opium, to the night
the elixir of your mouth where love pavanes
when my desires, towards you, set out in caravan
your eyes are the cistern where I drink my cares.
By your great large dark eyes, sighing out your soul,
Oh pitiless demon! pour on less flame upon me.
I am not the Styx who can embrace you nine times.
Alas! And I may not, licentious Megera,
in order to break your spirit and put you at bay,
in the hell of your bed become Proserpina.
Please see here for more accomplished versions.
We thought you'd enjoy at least one day of la poesie fracophone. Listen in to R's most skillful venery and stay tuned for a compliment to M. Baudelaire tomorrow.
a bien tot, mes petits choux
___
Later:
Thanks to my partner in crime for providing a translation. You're right darling, the words are too delicious not to be appreciated by non Francophones. I am shamed in to doing likewise.
In (mostly acurate) and literal translation
Sed Non Satiata- Never Satisfied- or as one translation has it- Unslakable Lust
Strange deity, brown as the nights,
whose scent is mixed musk and Havana,
work of some obi, Faust of the savanna,
sorceress of ebony thighs, child of black midnights.
I prefer to faithfulness, to opium, to the night
the elixir of your mouth where love pavanes
when my desires, towards you, set out in caravan
your eyes are the cistern where I drink my cares.
By your great large dark eyes, sighing out your soul,
Oh pitiless demon! pour on less flame upon me.
I am not the Styx who can embrace you nine times.
Alas! And I may not, licentious Megera,
in order to break your spirit and put you at bay,
in the hell of your bed become Proserpina.
Please see here for more accomplished versions.
Sunday, February 3, 2008
Day 3
in homage to Dorothy Dunnett and Johnathan Rys Meyers
Thomas Wyatt- "They Flee From Me That Sometime Did Me Seek"
Just a reminder, we haven't set the agenda for the rest of the month. Your poem-ry ideas are still welcome!
Thomas Wyatt- "They Flee From Me That Sometime Did Me Seek"
Just a reminder, we haven't set the agenda for the rest of the month. Your poem-ry ideas are still welcome!
Friday, February 1, 2008
Day 1
W.H. Auden- "What's in your mind, my dove, my coney."
The voice distortion frightens me. I sound rather like a 2-pack-a-day woman or like some aggrestive tibe of phlem has colonized my throat. Perhaps I'll try to achieve the same effect again with Baudelaire. I'm just learning, Chickadees. Bear with me.
PS: I think I should note here that Miss. R convinced me we should post our first read of each poem. My radio producorial skills cry out for editing but you're getting it here raw.
The voice distortion frightens me. I sound rather like a 2-pack-a-day woman or like some aggrestive tibe of phlem has colonized my throat. Perhaps I'll try to achieve the same effect again with Baudelaire. I'm just learning, Chickadees. Bear with me.
PS: I think I should note here that Miss. R convinced me we should post our first read of each poem. My radio producorial skills cry out for editing but you're getting it here raw.
Monday, January 21, 2008
Thursday, January 17, 2008
wet dream
Last night I'd hoped for oneiric copies of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili clustered flapping around dream towers like a parliament of tumescent fools (beans? birds?)
(What do you think: Would dream books of dream books cancel each other like doppelgangers or only move on into infinity?)
(What do you think: Would dream books of dream books cancel each other like doppelgangers or only move on into infinity?)
Instead there were vampires.
But not the "Crime, horror, bitey people and shagging, by God" variety, nor yet the worn velveteen and aphrodisiac-laced spittle kind. These were frightening in the way that only things half-seen can manage.
Sensibly, I locked the door of my neighbors house, ran for the linen closet and hid among the cerements.
Pillow book
Things to be avoided:
Water mills of effluvium pouring like Gin into a prostrate and sodden Gargantua.
Empty and full.
Empty and full.
(His mouth is becoming a round of snoring and scum in burbling parallel.)
Things to be eaten:
Madelines.
And Heartsring plectrums.
Things to be adored:
You
Water mills of effluvium pouring like Gin into a prostrate and sodden Gargantua.
Empty and full.
Empty and full.
(His mouth is becoming a round of snoring and scum in burbling parallel.)
Things to be eaten:
Madelines.
And Heartsring plectrums.
Things to be adored:
You
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