ALL RESPONSES |
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I mean
c’mon
that dog looks like a sissy
and what’s with Death holding on
to a big-sand-timey-thing
as if Death actually has to ride along-side--don’t
you think that Death should know
just where to wait to collect the body? so
his/her horse could rest at home
in the luxurious stables of deathliness
and eat Deathhay®, brought to us
by the makers of SuperDuperDeathSoyBeans®--the kind
that the EEC won’t import, but
are good enough for Americans?
And the devil looks dumb. DUUMB!
Durer should’ve added another umlaut to his name
for the devil. El Diablooo. AKA--Stupidface.
...
And no matter how tiny, villages on top of cliffs never look big enough to live in, or even ride through. I think
Durer was trying to emphasize the
exceptionally important role of tiny Christmas scenes
in this painting. the cheap ones can be found
at any drug store--but the good ones (named
“Gud” by any semi-Germanic sounding plastercast company
from Nepal) really only appear in magazines;
clippings like these; and realistic portraits of
constant Political Situations in the U. S. of A. |
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Easy to scoff at
an ancient
and seemingly outdated
though fine work of art.
Easy to miss
its commentary of
the reason
underlying the artist’s rage.
Without being fully advised
about the full background,
I can see that
what the artist may be saying is
to point at
the devastation brought about
by the partnership
of chivalry and ungodliness
death merely riding along
to reap the fruit.
Easy to avoid
seeing
the cavalier attitude
of capital and politics
today.
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[I finally finished this response to the previous stimulus -- and it's gone! I'm posting it anyway. It was prompted by the photo of an oncoming storm.]
A Scolding
Because we forget,
Because we rely
on memories of bluebells
and pebbles in streams,
Because we believe we are other,
She intervenes –
scatters ashes thick across
the sky, ripens clouds blood-
orange, slips them on tight
as sueded gloves and bears
down hard, bows our heads,
prods old joints and once-
fractured bones, She thrashes
the ground with branches, de-
capitates coral hibiscus blooms,
the lanky sunflowers, sets
the weather vane roosters
twirling frantic, She blows
salt water over levees, cracks
bricks, hides our footing beneath
the gritty river of Her wake, tips
over bridges that have cheated us
across rivers, then
Stillness –
She sheds the gloves, waves
the clouds away, pulls the sun
back into place and calms
the waters, leaves us raw to
wander the splintered landscape,
extend a hand to a silent stranger,
begin to sweep our way down to
what was, and then
stop
at the sudden flicker
of a painted bunting,
a feathered rainbow
flitting fast across
the robin’s egg
sky and then
vanishing.
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But Louis, what of the dog? Is it love
of his master, or the wanting of meat
waiting to be split between he and
two crows that goads his feet fall,
his fell feet.
The knight needn't worry too much over
the devil or of death: an enemy
or a partner even can do the heart
no harm. But the dog, so it's been said,
he's no friend to men, - and the knight, bury
him deep, lest with his claws he digs him up again. |
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Knights built Golem with what came to hand,
a low-tech shambling mass of a man, not tall
but plat-formed for the only view that counts
in pixels. He emerged from the tunnel he’d dug
out of prison, his old war dragging behind him
into the rearranged landscapes of the new war,
other wars ready like pin balls. Behind the drone
of his voice are other voices, all his own—
antic, contradictory—produced by human breath.
He’s reprogrammed now, but they don’t trust him
among the journalists he joked with once. No stray
truth ever falls from his tightened lips by day. By night
he scrapes his face to find his common clay. A nameless
aide records the weeping—it might be his, it will be ours
if he leads us to the enemies they built when they made him.
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I couldn't,
for lack of strength, perhaps,
swallow the rivers, or
stop the crescent of moons from becoming full.
I couldn't
make sense of present world order, where tears love the ones who clearly hate them;
Yet I, alone, wiped the shadows of`ourselves off the hundreds
of poems I wrote to you
because once I thought we both believed
in something pure,
purer than blood, rushing, through veins
to lungs, to heart,where its dreams resides;
cleaner, in innocence,than the long hours
of our past mornings.
My memories of you have no pride. They return, like I do,
shamelessly, to where our hands
first met our lips; where
the warmth of sand, the salt of water
layered future in the age of our corals,
layered tomorrow in the edge of me.
I still have memories, of you,
still believing
in something pure
like us.
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A likely choice for death, the choice of soldier,
easy prey, even in bullet proof vest and helmet.
A boy-girl of war makes an easy metaphor.
Up on the hill, all the comforts of home
keep the bogeyman down in the bogs, away
from the face behind the exploding grenade.
Innocents paint death in sunshine and summer.
Intuition says it’s a gray, autumnal day,
a dark woods, gnarls in treetrunks that look
like a gathering of beast eyes. The peat steams.
Branches rattle in the wind like the dying.
Like a very bad dream after too much wine.
An old soldier differs from the young
in the number of horses shot out from under him.
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I’m writing to you from a studio cabin 14 miles southwest of Grand Marais. Really. That’s where I am this time, along with my wife, Peg, and Rudy, a dachshund with a pronounced Napoleon complex. The air is clear and cool. We are surrounded by birch and pine. Lake Superior cuts the sky through the trees. As soon as I finish writing this, we’re driving to Grand Marais in order to find internet access so that I can post this commentary and perform administrative tasks for Northography as required. As it is a Monday morning, when I am normally engaged in the support of computer technology, I am struggling with the anxiety of having no pressure or schedule whatsoever.
Yesterday, with no internet access on a rainy day, I was forced to do almost nothing. I dozed in a recliner, listened to classical music, drank a couple of beers, ate chili and finished reading “Japanese Death Poems,” compiled by Yoel Hoffman. This book was given to me by Wendy Brown-Baez during a recent visit. Wendy must have read me well, because I found the book fascinating. Zen monks, Haiku poets and samurai followed the tradition of writing jisei, a final “farewell” poem. Although some were written using Chinese form, as well as renga, most were Haiku. They usually contained imagery depicting the season in which the poet died, and commented on the nature of death. Most were typically written on or near the days of the poet’s death, but it is doubtful that most were as spontaneous as they might seem. Some poets even wrote several of them many years previous to their passing, wishing to ensure they would leave behind a work of lasting quality.
I have to admit these poems have found their way into my approach towards writing poetry. Why not write each poem as if it were your last? Or, conversely, write as if life is eternal, filling an infinite world with ideas. Perhaps, though, we already do tend to take life and death into account when writing. In the September 2008 edition of Poets and Writers, Billy Collins states in an interview that “The lyric poem is basically about you dying. Here I am, I am looking at a tree, and I am going to die. You could take 83 percent of lyric poems and put them under that heading, with variations on that observation.” My guess is that the remaining 17 percent are about sex or love. Or all of the above.
For the most part, though, I doubt that many poets consciously consider death as a topic, and I’m not saying they should. Even considering the recent stimulus presented on Northography, “Knight, Death and the Devil,” by Albrecht Dürer, it is conceivable to associate the image with the Republican National Convention or children’s cartoons. So, please, forget you ever read this, clear your heads or whatever you do, and write your hearts into words. I, for one, will try not to stay awake at night thinking about festival planning and website design, but instead will take in the fresh air and smoked herring that abound here. Maybe I’ll write a poem. Is that work? |
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Hundreds of geese have
returned to their annual fly
over of instinctual travel
to the easy looking and empty
fields of the Mower County Fair
Only days removed from sweat-
charged neon rides and night
sex, the baby goats, and hand
raised rabbits, I can see the Midway
from my rear window: the empty
swine barns, smell the lingering
smells of full-uddered cows
The geese gather like good hearted
young men and women, all with lumps
in their throats and a short lived
message comes from this year’s
bull goose to not get too attached
to cut-grass because after the laughter
and the dairy princess and the cotton
candy and sticky fingers of snot nosed kids,
comes the slaughter of innocent lives
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It was all very long ago
in a terrible country.
A land of rock and lizard,
of trees like chimneys.
What I was I am no longer.
What I did — is just beyond.
How did I leave? I followed my dog.
Whatever I could, I left behind. |
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have you noticed the way, good death, that
eaten tin lets loose my heart, to stain
in iron teeth on my path?
was life as pointless when
as it was now? the furred staff sure
to draw away the eyes of each foe
before it draws away their soul? |
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So this knight awakens, and it's dusk.
Sky the color of his maiden's blush and all that.
But suddenly none of that matters:
God's wounds, it's a hard life, lugging
that armor city to city. Demons manifesting,
maidens to be rescued, cities saved,
the challenge, the burden of chivalry.
Never saw the point, really.
The armor chafes and pinches,
the demons usually wild boars,
the maidens for the most part
betrothed to local princelets.
Better to be a craftsman.
He always liked working
with his hands. To coax
a saint's likeness from dying linden,
apply paint with like-stained hands.
He'll take a year, maybe. Apprentice
himself to artisans.
Find himself, yea verily.
Let the year stretch out to two, maybe
wed a pig-herd's daughter, plain
and fiery and loyal as a terrier.
But what ho! From the dragon's den, smoke
burbles forth, the maiden moans,
and his sword made swift directs him
in its will.
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The man is stirred by love and basks
in warm light
He learns of rivers inside. He loves
a woman and part of that loving
is not human and runs at the feet
of his primal nature
And just as Eros was present at the egg
of the earth, the man’s love is subject
to season, to whim and charm and keep
sake
Before the hour of revenge comes,
the man is forced to stand up to death
and the devil; for once he surrenders,
the earth will surround and claim his body
as if he were to be engraved for centuries
on a thin sheet of copper
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He didn’t know
he would be grateful
for a late autumn journey
where every step splintered
the rime across the fallen.
He didn’t know
he would enter
music that translates
the world back into dirt fields
that have always called to him.
As if he were a thing come
from the dirt, like a tuber
or like a lost boy. End
blood riven days.
End the exiled
unraveling strangeness.
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Quick notes then more goes around
I’m feeling quite oppressed in the chest
from non-filtered nightmares
too cheap to buy what I like
but still I don’t like to smoke
or at least the idea of it
the confusion loses itself in clutter
with deadlines watching like wanna-be suburban widows
watch waistlines but it all comes together, right
it all ends before new begins and it is then
we wish we’d done more
afraid there’s a numbers requirement for heaven
I guess. |
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Lord, my mind
In the cup of your palm
Should steer straight to task
But in my mind
Your palm a seive
And I slip thru.
What Death, should I fear?
Each hauberk nick, Time's grinding
Stone, graves to worry over. My skull
Beneath my helm swims in nacre.
In my hands, rosaries rubbed to pearls.
Your Devil dogs my heels. Your Devil,
Loving, as any monster loves
The moment of its creation. The spark
That runs from heart to hand,
Crimson to the hilt. When you cast
Him down had you yet imagined
These fine bones, these willing hands,
The caverns winding in your Adam's heart?
But my trust, my love to you. In
Your service no deed undone.
Yet this dark matter, - can water be both holy
And heavy? And when thru Death's tunnel
Spun by your force I collide, you may
This Adam split: God my soul and glory,
The Devil take my guts. And the flies
Buzzing at the offal, sparks flung
From Imagination's fire, may into
Knight extinguish. |
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Lord, my mind
In the cup of your palm
Should steer straight to task
But in my mind
Your palm a seive
And I slip thru.
What Death, should I fear?
Each hauberk nick, Time's grinding
Stone, graves to worry over. My skull
Beneath my helm swims in nacre.
In my hands, rosaries rubbed to pearls.
Your Devil dogs my heels. Your Devil,
Loving, as any monster loves
The moment of its creation. The spark
That runs from heart to hand,
Crimson to the hilt. When you cast
Him down had you yet imagined
These fine bones, these willing hands,
The caverns winding in your Adam's heart?
But my trust, my love to you. In
Your service no deed undone.
Yet this dark matter, - can water be both holy
And heavy? And when thru Death's tunnel
Spun by your force I collide, you may
This Adam split: God my soul and glory,
The Devil take my guts. And the flies
Buzzing at the offal, sparks flung
From Imagination's fire, into
Knight extinguished. |
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In my wake, I leave
destruction and ill creations.
I am followed by strange rams
and uncouth old men.
My hound reflects
the soundest parts of my honor,
yet he'd tear apart
innocence, for dinner.
The bumbling houses I pass
are all reminded of their imperfection;
looking upon the great, thick walls
of the castle with its fortress
and distant brocades.
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On each peak
you sight the ideal,
your armour worthless,
your weapon, dull.
With only skin and words
to bring her in,
eyes flashing,
she begins to speak
and dissipates
with autumn wind. |
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The self-chosen soldier
though the family myth
put him on a horse and
left home with his mother’s
ironed the flag his father
carried through ‘Nam,
blessing, accompanied only by death
at the nose and the devil at the tail—
he always took the hind most.
So much for blessings. You have to ask
what you’d do to get one—
naked, dress in a bear
skin rug like Jacob who
mimicked a hairier brother?
Make soup the way the poor grunt’s mother
did the night he left?
Esau didn’t need a blessing
as much as he enjoyed a mess of potage.
She was the one to clean the pot and take
the message of Iraq. All a crock, she said
and dumped it, so they wouldn’t have to use
the rest for a wake. Not his.
She retracted her blessing on the war, which is why
the devil worked in Iraq and vacationed in Afghanistan,
and only death brought home her blue-eyed boy.
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Albrecht Durer rides across the screen
resurrected, centuries old, large as life,
a mere hoof away
from today.
Church, country, community, person
etched in metal, ready for print
all got up in armor, wielding weapons
looking for something to fight
while death and the devil watch
and some little dog yaps, lizard
goes the other way.
What is remembered here? What proliferates?
Only this: onward christian soldiers,
battle hymns your only song.
Life is a war
and don't you forget it.
Disrobe, knight. Devilish death will help
find other rainment,
other knights in other temples.
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The Horse
By choice I think
I would have been a walker
amidst the rattles and the clanks
to keep my distance from the horse
but I suppose there were plenty of
other aromas back then
my own included
to swamp that pervasive stink
that burns in the sinuses
When you are a kid you beg for a pony
mostly because of those Saturday afternoon
twelve cent cowboy matinees
shot in the wild west
and you know you deserve one
maybe a pinto
they look so friendly
and so easy to ride
but haven't a clue what it would mean
to actually keep one alive
even though there is the family farm
you visit once in awhile to chase the cats
and you can't smell a horse on the screen
especially in black and white |
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Somewhere in my body
is a room with a door that shuts
a soft red rug on a wooden floor
the window's cracked, the glass
dusty with sin, but still a lustrous
moon rises. I slip out of my clothes,
lay on the rug, wrap myself in your
words. Glint and supple I place
on my tongue, gladly, swallow.
Somewhere in my body
the moon falls into shadow, each
night grows longer, and I fight the urge
of silence, choose linger instead
let the dust of you settle on the sill,
write your name with my fingertip.
Unable to resist, I blow you into the dark,
watch you break into a thousand flecks
shimmery, made of light.
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after an etching by Albrecht Dürer, 1513.
The self-chosen soldier—
though his mother ironed
the flag and the family myth
his father carried through ‘Nam—
left with his parents’ blessing
accompanied by death at the nose
of his horse and the devil,
who always took the hind most, at the tail.
So much for blessings. You have to ask
what you’d do to get one—
naked, dress in a bear
skin rug like Jacob who
mimicked a hairier brother?
Make soup the way the poor grunt’s mother
did the night he left?
Esau didn’t need a blessing
as much as he enjoyed a mess of potage.
The soldier’s mother was the one to clean the pot
and take the message of Iraq. All a crock, she said
and dumped it, so they wouldn’t have to use
the rest for a wake, oh no, not his.
She retracted her blessing on the war, which is why
the devil worked in Iraq and vacationed in Afghanistan,
and only death brought home her blue-eyed boy.
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Learn to Paint Like Albrecht Dürer!
Albrecht Dürer® Watercolors,
“A WATERCOLOUR REVOLUTION.”
Hahnemuhle paper, with the warm white
tone of Dürer, imparts both a classical
and modern feel. The Albrecht Dürer annotated
stamp collection makes a nice addition!
ABC Stitch Therapy needle arts supplies:
Albrecht Dürer’s “Orpine and Bugle,”
“Daffodils and Other Flowers.” Dürer’s
Rabbit Large Pillow Kit – Tell a Friend!
Do you or someone you know collect owls? How
wise to select the Dürer Owl Pillow Kit!
Horror Fonts! Free! Albrecht Dürer Gothic (2004).
The Tarot of Dürer, a deck of intense grace
and powerful beauty. “Praying Hands” by
Albrecht Dürer Washcloth Kit, “Praying
Hands” aqua foil-wrapped chocolates and gold lapel
pin, tattoo information for “Praying Hands.”
Submitted by: Connie Ferguson, Monroe
Middle School, 8th grade lesson: “Dürer
Watercolor – Patterns and Texture.” Project
the image of “The Rhinoceros” onto
the white board. Students try to duplicate
textures of the woodcut by copying them
with a marker. Turn the projector off and see
how little we accomplished.
This page was automatically translated from
Chinese/rubber girdles…us stamp collectible…
Thanks:-) information of Innsbruck castle
painting by Albrecht Durër…
People Who Have Made Car Crush? A Friend
…janeane garofalo, rubber stamps, eyeglasses,
judy blume, getting better,…graduate school,
renaissance, ravenclaw, albrecht dürer, british comedy,… |
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She is sixteen and honest and her Luxemburg question
catches me by surprise. “How do you make friends
here?”
She is a foreign exchange student, beautifully European
with dark complexion and steely eyes. Like the eyes
of unused needles.
i consider the question at the same time considering
my own arrival. In my mouth, an inky taste.
Who are my friends? Squirrel nuts
buried in autumn chill? Gypsies? Fortune
tellers in hand-driven carts? Companions
for a few marvelous hours of beer drinking
people to follow like human rainbows
leading me to imaginary pots-of-gold.
She is waiting for some kind of response. Quietness
will only confuse her more. Let her know I am not
one of those she seeks.
i want to tell her to spread orange blossoms or gather
herself in an unwedded moment and watch
a sunrise with whoever will wait for her.
i want to tell her everyone is afraid of being
friendless; it one of the rights of being human
that it is okay to be jealous of others,
to covet their personalities.
In a split second, i realize i’m not sure
about this friend-stuff and instead
i look into her eyes:
“Notice others, Lynn, and acknowledge
them.
That's all anyone can ask for. |
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all is as wing
all is as song
all is a story quietly told
while the wars are endlessly hunkered down
down the boys go, hole in the ground
down the grenades, the age-old fear
the night-soaked armor and bomb-blasted tear
all is as wing
all is as gold
when the owners have nothing left to own
and poverty lines up, holds out its hand
and the child scrambles low, scrapes sand
for a kernel of rice, begs a handful of beans
more precious than pearls
all is well and all will be
wings, while wheels turn and clank,
war grins and grins, down forest, down
treasure, down moral motive and quest.
a bag of beans, the price of a bomb?
how can you compare, what does it mean?
I feel the earth groan and the seas heave and swell:
where will you be when you hear the death knell?
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I was on the operating table
for nine hours
they used up five units of blood on me then
and another four that evening as I slept
when I went over to Iraq
I had two legs and a heart
when I returned I had no legs.
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Drear northern journey
in this golden age of mandate,
He aches for silence
with nothing to forgive
no birds except hawks
keeping their brown watch.
This man’s morning purposes
were clear: chains of metal,
rings, pieces of shield
fluttering on a breeze.
No defeat, no abandoning the dead
purposes lost as animals used in war.
He tried courage
since he could not exit.
He used cunning
but it failed.
He fell asleep
hoping it was death.
Dark wells opened
in his night.
Irony grew there
and it was beautiful.
Some patient dogs and horses return.
How surprised he is to find them whole
and moved with rabbits and field mice
into what was his soul.
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First there is the rider,
holding canter, gallop,
steady. He fixes
a far mark
he cannot reach today.
He believes
he and his horse
will go from here
to there. Death pulls up beside,
natural. It is certain he
will slow the journey,
his ailing horse plucked
from pasture, balking backward
remembering everything that came before.
The rider will wait, ready
to hitch death behind
or gather him in his arms.
They are old friends.
On this landscape
where they ride and only ride
toward the slight horizon
they may find the devil
in a lizard, a shrub, a private joke.
A joke between friends
who are tired, finally tired of the allegory
and pressing on. |
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(This isn't related to the picture. I just thought I'd throw this one out there and see if it flies.)
Round, cobble rim
stares up at me from
stone throat below.
The bottom,
a distant lunar pool
at midnight.
I drop in a penny,
hear the echo ripple
leagues beneath.
“Hello,”
I ask into the
earthen ear,
answered
with wary
watery
reply.
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Dürer's the Knight
presumably
symbolizes Erasmus' advice
to a Christian Soldier.
Dürer drew
a likness of Erasmus
from a medalion struck
in that sage's honor
some time back.
Dürer thought
the etching did
not represent the wise man
fairly.
Erasmus agreed, but
nevertheless,
thought well of Dürer
declaring him the finest
artist of their time.
I'm dying to find
did the twain ever meet? |
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4:50 pm
I walk from my garage to my home
Backyard still in disarray
Awaiting spring for new plantings after construction
Doused with the evening rain,
Notice two puddles in depressions
Filled with morning rain and growing
Unlock the back door
Cooper comes running
Joy-filled
What took you so long you’rehomeyou’rehomeyou’rehome
Strip off my shoes and socks
Hike up my pants on my skinny knees
We run out into the backyard
Spinkled by the gray downpour
I jump in the first puddle
Cooper yelps
Whatyadoinwhatyadoinwhatyadoin?
Bites at the splash
That CorgiBark echoing off the garage and fence
Clacking teeth happily
I run over to the other puddle
He tries herding
His nature
Moving sheep
Big grin on his silly face
I splash again
And he bites at the water
Yelping loud enough to overpower a rumbling Harley in the lot out back
Laughing at each other I chase him around the yard
Love in the rain |
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King James of Scotland died at Flodden Field
In a failed attempt to support the French
Who turned their spurs and fled at Guinegate,
From the arrows of King Henry VIII.
He was in league with the Medici Pope
And the Holy Roman Emperor,
To loosen the grip of Louis XII
And contain the growing threat of Venice.
In the midst of the ongoing violence,
Michelangelo chiseled monuments,
And Machiavelli wrote The Prince,
A handbook describing numerous ways
To plow the wealth of nations into graves. |
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The august emperor of all beneath heaven
Asked the earthy artisan
One Autumn within his stately court of sneers: |
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The august emperor of all beneath heaven
Asked the earthy artisan
One Autumn within his stately court of sneers: |
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