Works in Progress, 16

1.
maneuvering around car-sized potholes
designing legal strategies
speaking solely in terms of racial justice
examining burial pits and naked skulls

2.
sticking to issues that directly affect them
bemoaning the cautiousness of today's athletes
co-opting the arguments of their opposition
tracking Latino immigrants at the border

3.
supporting any effort to unionize
failing to generate meaningful responses
feeling the centipede in oneself
getting some good poems out of it

4.
rewriting the country's labor laws
seeing a psychic map of our obsessions
building electoral coalitions that will win
emphasizing the overlapping interests of the affluent

5.
slumbering until nightfall
setting this brain of mine afire
reaching irritably after fact & reason
shunning easy consolations

6.
subsidizing extinction industries
helping women victimized by male violence
doubling the sign-up bonus for volunteers
supporting the troops while doubting the war

7.
naming the dead
waiting for him to break silence
descending the steeps of the soughing twilight
assimilating foreign cultures

8.
freeing the slaves
admonishing those who do evil
stamping out political brushfires
democratizing the US

9.
getting in touch with the cable guys
swinging the birches
testing the waters
pushing radical music agendas

10.
getting out the vote
fetching water from the well
educating the masses
confessing to our personal demons

11.
clearing minefields from past wars
laying them for wars yet to come
staying executions, pardoning the innocent
blurring the boundaries, the borders

12.
reading maps in the dark with the top light off
folding them all back up rightly
cramming them into the glove compartment
getting moving again in the right direction

13.
cooling our heels
voting early and often
keeping our fingers crossed
paying full-price for our journey

14.
assembling a glossary of oft-used phrases
keeping silent while the tea is poured
maintaining an inventory of our beliefs and belongings
finding time to clean up around the house

15.
making the world safe for plutocracy
clearing the minefields and cow pastures
converting analog files to digital
rereading An Anatomy of Melancholy

16.
fighting the high cost of prescription meditations
comparing the works of Proust, Gide, and Sartre
putting something aside for a rainy day
asking for another user's name and password

17.

Poems from the Book of Nanoseconds, #24

a frustration, a sense of failure
over a long period
transmuted into religious fervor

Jackson Mac Low (1922-2004)

Unmanifest

What the maker of a manifesto does not comprehend or acknowledge
is the basic unmanifestness from which and within which each manifes-
tation takes place. It is this neglect or ignorance that calls forth repug-
nance when a manifesto is proclaimed or published, especially one
regarding art. As if what comes to being in and as the work of art
could ever be totally manifest or even manifest at all without its abiding
steadfastly in the unmanfest! A work of art is a manifesto only insofar
as it is its own antimanifesto.

21 June 1983
New York

fr. Bloomsday
[Barrytown, NY: Station Hill, 1984]

"After the Goldberg Variations--'superessential music,'
to employ the mystical jargon--we close our eyes, giving
ourselves up to the echo they have raised within us. Nothing
more exists, except a plenitude without content, which is
indeed the sole way of approaching the Supreme."

--E. M. Cioran, Anathemas and Admirations

Works in Progress, 15

1.
maneuvering around car-sized potholes
designing legal strategies
speaking solely in terms of racial justice
examining burial pits and naked skulls

2.
sticking to issues that directly affect them
bemoaning the cautiousness of today's athletes
co-opting the arguments of their opposition
tracking Latino immigrants at the border

3.
supporting any effort to unionize
failing to generate meaningful responses
feeling the centipede in oneself
getting some good poems out of it

4.
rewriting the country's labor laws
seeing a psychic map of our obsessions
building electoral coalitions that will win
emphasizing the overlapping interests of the affluent

5.
slumbering until nightfall
setting this brain of mine afire
reaching irritably after fact & reason
shunning easy consolations

6.
subsidizing extinction industries
helping women victimized by male violence
doubling the sign-up bonus for volunteers
supporting the troops while doubting the war

7.
naming the dead
waiting for him to break silence
descending the steeps of the soughing twilight
assimilating foreign cultures

8.
freeing the slaves
admonishing those who do evil
stamping out political brushfires
democratizing the US

9.
getting in touch with the cable guys
swinging the birches
testing the waters
pushing radical music agendas

10.
getting out the vote
fetching water from the well
educating the masses
confessing to our personal demons

11.
clearing minefields from past wars
laying them for wars yet to come
staying executions, pardoning the innocent
blurring the boundaries, the borders

12.
reading maps in the dark with the top light off
folding them all back up rightly
cramming them into the glove compartment
getting moving again in the right direction

13.
cooling our heels
voting early and often
keeping our fingers crossed
paying full-price for our journey

14.
assembling a glossary of oft-used phrases
keeping silent while the tea is poured
maintaining an inventory of our beliefs and belongings
finding time to clean up around the house

15.
making the world safe for plutocracy
clearing the minefields and cow pastures
converting analog files to digital
rereading An Anatomy of Melancholy

16.

Poems from the Book of Nanoseconds, #23

household, so unfamiliar
the changes in him
main source of contagion

"I placed one word beside another and finally with a great deal
of effort managed to create a whole sentence--naturally not one
that 'meant something' but one that was composed of word-
nuances. It was the hidden meaning that I was seeking--a kind
of Alchimie du Verbe. One word has its meaning and another
has its own, but when they are brought together something
strange happens to them: they have an in-between connotation
at the same time as they retain their original individual meanings . . .
Poetry is this very tension-filled relationship between the words,
between the lines, between meanings."

--Gunnar Ekelöf, tr. Auden & Sjöberg

Fragments from Thoreau, 3

to the tip of the hoof
some portions
almost covered with flies

Poems from the Book of Nanoseconds, #22

unaware, he grasped
impenetrable
distance

"After a long and arduous journey a young Japanese man arrived deep
in a forest where the teacher of his choice was living in a small house he
had made. When the student arrived, the teacher was sweeping up
fallen leaves. Greeting his master, the young man received no greeting
in return. And to all his questions, there were no replies. Realizing there
was nothing he could do to get the teacher's attention, the student went
to another part of the same forest and built himself a house. Years later,
when he was sweeping up fallen leaves, he was enlightened. He then
dropped everything, ran through the forest to his teacher, and said,
'Thank you.'"

--John Cage
fr. Silence [Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1961]

Works in Progress, 14

1.
maneuvering around car-sized potholes
designing legal strategies
speaking solely in terms of racial justice
examining burial pits and naked skulls

2.
sticking to issues that directly affect them
bemoaning the cautiousness of today's athletes
co-opting the arguments of their opposition
tracking Latino immigrants at the border

3.
supporting any effort to unionize
failing to generate meaningful responses
feeling the centipede in oneself
getting some good poems out of it

4.
rewriting the country's labor laws
seeing a psychic map of our obsessions
building electoral coalitions that will win
emphasizing the overlapping interests of the affluent

5.
slumbering until nightfall
setting this brain of mine afire
reaching irritably after fact & reason
shunning easy consolations

6.
subsidizing extinction industries
helping women victimized by male violence
doubling the sign-up bonus for volunteers
supporting the troops while doubting the war

7.
naming the dead
waiting for him to break silence
descending the steeps of the soughing twilight
assimilating foreign cultures

8.
freeing the slaves
admonishing those who do evil
stamping out political brushfires
democratizing the US

9.
getting in touch with the cable guys
swinging the birches
testing the waters
pushing radical music agendas

10.
getting out the vote
fetching water from the well
educating the masses
confessing to our personal demons

11.
clearing minefields from past wars
laying them for wars yet to come
staying executions, pardoning the innocent
blurring the boundaries, the borders

12.
reading maps in the dark with the top light off
folding them all back up rightly
cramming them into the glove compartment
getting moving again in the right direction

13.
cooling our heels
voting early and often
keeping our fingers crossed
paying full-price for our journey

14.
assembling a glossary of oft-used phrases
keeping silent while the tea is poured
maintaining an inventory of our beliefs and belongings
finding time to clean up around the house

15.

Poems from the Book of Nanoseconds, #21

a careless, elegant grace
a constant, mocking reproach

"It chanced that the Sunday morning that we were there [in Provincetown
harbor], I had joined a party of men who were smoking and lolling over a
pile of boards on one of the wharves, (nihil humanum a me, &c.,) when
our landlord, who was a sort of tithing-man, went off to stop some sailors
who were engaged in painting their vessel. Our party was recruited from
time to time by other citizens, who came rubbing their eyes as if they had
just got out of bed; and one old man remarked to me that it was the custom
there to lie abed very late on Sunday, it being a day of rest. I remarked
that, as I thought, they might as well let the man paint, for all us. It was not
noisy work, and would not disturb our devotions. But a young man in the
company, taking his pipe out of his mouth, said that it was a plain contra-
diction of the law of God, which he quoted, and if they did not have some
such regulation, vessels would run in there to tar, and rig, and paint, and
they would have no Sabbath at all. This was a good argument enough, if
he had not put it in the name of religion. The next summer, as I sat on a
hill there one sultry Sunday afternoon, the meeting-house windows being
open, my meditations were interrupted by the noise of a preacher who
shouted like a boatswain, profaning the quiet atmosphere, and who, I
fancied, must have taken off his coat. Few things could have been more
disgusting or disheartening. I wished the tithing-man would stop him."

--Henry David Thoreau

fr. Cape Cod (1865)
[New York: The Library of America, 1985]

Works in Progress, 13

1.
maneuvering around car-sized potholes
designing legal strategies
speaking solely in terms of racial justice
examining burial pits and naked skulls

2.
sticking to issues that directly affect them
bemoaning the cautiousness of today's athletes
co-opting the arguments of their opposition
tracking Latino immigrants at the border

3.
supporting any effort to unionize
failing to generate meaningful responses
feeling the centipede in oneself
getting some good poems out of it

4.
rewriting the country's labor laws
seeing a psychic map of our obsessions
building electoral coalitions that will win
emphasizing the overlapping interests of the affluent

5.
slumbering until nightfall
setting this brain of mine afire
reaching irritably after fact & reason
shunning easy consolations

6.
subsidizing extinction industries
helping women victimized by male violence
doubling the sign-up bonus for volunteers
supporting the troops while doubting the war

7.
naming the dead
waiting for him to break silence
descending the steeps of the soughing twilight
assimilating foreign cultures

8.
freeing the slaves
admonishing those who do evil
stamping out political brushfires
democratizing the US

9.
getting in touch with the cable guys
swinging the birches
testing the waters
pushing radical music agendas

10.
getting out the vote
fetching water from the well
educating the masses
confessing to our personal demons

11.
clearing minefields from past wars
laying them for wars yet to come
staying executions, pardoning the innocent
blurring the boundaries, the borders

12.
reading maps in the dark with the top light off
folding them all back up rightly
cramming them into the glove compartment
getting moving again in the right direction

13.
cooling our heels
voting early and often
keeping our fingers crossed
paying full-price for our journey

14.

Poems from the Book of Nanoseconds, #20

fused intuition
something of
isolation

Fragment from W. C. Williams

I am that he whose brains / are scattered / aimlessly


fr. William Carlos Williams, "The Desert Music," 1954
in The Collected Poems, Vol II --1939-1962
[New York: New Directions, 1986]

Works in Progress, 12

1.
maneuvering around car-sized potholes
designing legal strategies
speaking solely in terms of racial justice
examining burial pits and naked skulls

2.
sticking to issues that directly affect them
bemoaning the cautiousness of today's athletes
co-opting the arguments of their opposition
tracking Latino immigrants at the border

3.
supporting any effort to unionize
failing to generate meaningful responses
feeling the centipede in oneself
getting some good poems out of it

4.
rewriting the country's labor laws
seeing a psychic map of our obsessions
building electoral coalitions that will win
emphasizing the overlapping interests of the affluent

5.
slumbering until nightfall
setting this brain of mine afire
reaching irritably after fact & reason
shunning easy consolations

6.
subsidizing extinction industries
helping women victimized by male violence
doubling the sign-up bonus for volunteers
supporting the troops while doubting the war

7.
naming the dead
waiting for him to break silence
descending the steeps of the soughing twilight
assimilating foreign cultures

8.
freeing the slaves
admonishing those who do evil
stamping out political brushfires
democratizing the US

9.
getting in touch with the cable guys
swinging the birches
testing the waters
pushing radical music agendas

10.
getting out the vote
fetching water from the well
educating the masses
confessing to our personal demons

11.
clearing minefields from past wars
laying them for wars yet to come
staying executions, pardoning the innocent
blurring the boundaries, the borders

12.
reading maps in the dark with the top light off
folding them all back up rightly
cramming them into the glove compartment
getting moving again in the right direction

13.

"He who rides a tiger cannot dismount. Chinese proverb. Applied to action: what you get is history. Action is capitalism, the armaments industry. Malplaquet--Borodino--Port Arthur--150,000 dead, 200,000 dead, 250,000 dead--no one can now see history as any-thing but the justification of mass murder: rapine and glorification-- there's the mechanism of power. And what history records is not the nations' folk-memory of themselves, but their funny papers. If you look at them twenty years later, you recall the fashions for war- widows, but not a word of that the battles were about. A shrapnel splinter on the watch-chain draped over the belly of the good-time boys, the sharks, the profiteers, while they bait a chippy at the thé-dansant--that's what remains, that is the aere perennius, that outlasts the general staffs, that's the nail that holds history to the flagpole. All that travail brought forth a stone--that's history: a legend, a dream! Think of all that is now growing a beard in some Kyffhäuser: the Manchus and the Hohenstaufens, the Tennos and the Shoguns and the Lancashire woolmongers--the beard growing without hairtonic through all those table-tops, and the ravens have croaked themselves hoarse and are sick and tired of it and have gone flapping off over the hills: history, much too classical for these down-and-out nations, pinchbeck offspring of the Titans, more heroin than heroism, froth on their lips from talking platitudes--counter-jumpers of history! "Anyone who has nothing at all to offer the present day talks history! Rome, the Rubicon. The jaws of Caesar and the brains of troglodytes, that's their type! Wars, knouts, tyrants, plagues to keep the masses in check, there you might see a touch of the grand manner, but history, no, that's nothing for--heroes! À propos, victories and mis-victories, will and power--what labels for these broth-cubes! On the table free groceries and under the table looted Persian carpets: there you have the cold facts of history. What history destroys is usually temples, and what it loots is always art. Everyone gets his turn among the firms and the Pharaohs. The sapphires from Amphitrite's eye-sockets find their way on to the Madonna's mantle of beaten gold, then on to some imperial Colleoni's sword-knob. Malplaquet--Borodino--Port Arthur--in the mollifying light of cultural philosophy: states of levitation, that's all. Yet behind it all there stand, calmly and collectedly, the missionaries of formal reason, the leisurely collectors and artificers of decisions."

--Gottfried Benn written 1937, published 1949
fr. "Wolf's Tavern" tr. Ernst Kaiser and Eithne Wilkins
in Primal Vision: Selected Writings of Gottfried Benn 
[New York: New Directions, 1971]

Fragments from Thoreau, 2

the bank of one of our rivers
fewer small wild animals
prowling there

Poems from the Book of Nanoseconds, #19

good for nothing
the most frightening
dry, fragile leaves

Fragments from Thoreau, 1

shot, skinned and stuffed
in a thick leather sole
you must not fire

Works in Progress, 11

1.
maneuvering around car-sized potholes
designing legal strategies
speaking solely in terms of racial justice
examining burial pits and naked skulls

2.
sticking to issues that directly affect them
bemoaning the cautiousness of today's athletes
co-opting the arguments of their opposition
tracking Latino immigrants at the border

3.
supporting any effort to unionize
failing to generate meaningful responses
feeling the centipede in oneself
getting some good poems out of it

4.
rewriting the country's labor laws
seeing a psychic map of our obsessions
building electoral coalitions that will win
emphasizing the overlapping interests of the affluent

5.
slumbering until nightfall
setting this brain of mine afire
reaching irritably after fact & reason
shunning easy consolations

6.
subsidizing extinction industries
helping women victimized by male violence
doubling the sign-up bonus for volunteers
supporting the troops while doubting the war

7.
naming the dead
waiting for him to break silence
descending the steeps of the soughing twilight
assimilating foreign cultures

8.
freeing the slaves
admonishing those who do evil
stamping out political brushfires
democratizing the US

9.
getting in touch with the cable guys
swinging the birches
testing the waters
pushing radical music agendas

10.
getting out the vote
fetching water from the well
educating the masses
confessing to our personal demons

11.
clearing minefields from past wars
laying them for wars yet to come
staying executions, pardoning the innocent
blurring the boundaries, the borders

12.

Poems from the Book of Nanoseconds, #18

no words to waste
early each morning

Works in Progress, 10

1.
maneuvering around car-sized potholes
designing legal strategies
speaking solely in terms of racial justice
examining burial pits and naked skulls

2.
sticking to issues that directly affect them
bemoaning the cautiousness of today's athletes
co-opting the arguments of their opposition
tracking Latino immigrants at the border

3.
supporting any effort to unionize
failing to generate meaningful responses
feeling the centipede in oneself
getting some good poems out of it

4.
rewriting the country's labor laws
seeing a psychic map of our obsessions
building electoral coalitions that will win
emphasizing the overlapping interests of the affluent

5.
slumbering until nightfall
setting this brain of mine afire
reaching irritably after fact & reason
shunning easy consolations

6.
subsidizing extinction industries
helping women victimized by male violence
doubling the sign-up bonus for volunteers
supporting the troops while doubting the war

7.
naming the dead
waiting for him to break silence
descending the steeps of the soughing twilight
assimilating foreign cultures

8.
freeing the slaves
admonishing those who do evil
stamping out political brushfires
democratizing the US

9.
getting in touch with the cable guys
swinging the birches
testing the waters
pushing radical music agendas

10.
getting out the vote
fetching water from the well
educating the masses
confessing to our personal demons

11.

Poems from the Book of Nanoseconds, #17

places called cafés
thousands of idle people
men and women

"One day while I was bathing, the telephone rang. A man's voice
said, 'Is David Revill there?' My mother had answered, and she
thought from his unusual voice that this was one of my friends
fooling around. She said, 'No. Can I take a message?' The man's
voice said, 'Well, it's not important. Just tell him John Cage rang.'

"An open-minded browse through a percussion textbook had
taught me that there was more to music than just Beethoven; there
was an innovative and thoughtful American composer named
John Cage. As I heard and played his music and read his books
(I was still a teenager), I was entranced. When I learned he was
performing in London, I had written to ask if we could meet. Now
here I was, dripping water on to the carpet as we set up our
appointment. I spent half of the following Tuesday with John Cage
in his friend Bonnie Bird's London flat and at the East-West
Centre on Old Street, talking about Georges Méliès, anarchism
and macrobiotic food, and sampling mekkabu soup. Cage told
me, 'You chew very well.'"

--David Revill
fr. Preface to The Roaring Silence: John Cage: A Life
[New York: Arcade, 1992]

Poems from the Book of Nanoseconds, #16

this age of the effete
worst still to come?

corrigendum

The last word on page 129, which is
missing, is "frozen."

"The fairest order in the world is a heap
of random sweepings."

--Heraclitus, Fragment 125

"The root of our English word 'mystery' is a Greek verb,
muein, which means to close the mouth. Dictionaries tend
to explain the connection by pointing out that the initiates
to ancient mysteries were sworn to silence, but the root may
also indicate, it seems to me, that what the initiate learns at
a mystery cannot be talked about. It can be shown, it can
be witnessed or revealed, it cannot be explained.

"When I set out to write this book I was drawn to speak of
gifts by way of anecdotes and fairy tales because, I think
a gift--and particularly an inner gift, a talent--is a mystery.
We know what giftedness is for having been gifted, or for
having known a gifted man or woman. We know that art is
a gift for having had the experience of art. We cannot know
these things by way of economic, psychological, or
aesthetic theories. Where an inner gift comes from, what
obligations of reciprocity it brings with it, how and toward
whom our gratitude should be discharged, to what degree
we must leave a gift alone and to what degree we must
discipline it, how we are to feed its spirit and preserve its
vitality--these and all the other questions raised by a gift can
only be answered by telling Just So stories. As Whitman
says, 'the talkers talking their talk' cannot explain these
things; we learn by 'faint clues and indirections.'"

--Lewis Hyde, The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic
Life of Property
[New York: Vintage Books, 1983]

Poems from the Book of Nanoseconds, #15

oblivious
stood there
through his open body

ERRATA: page 68, line 8
physical locality read
psychical locality

fr. Nick Piombino, The Boundary of Blur
[New York: Roof Books, 1993]

Works in Progress, 9

1.
maneuvering around car-sized potholes
designing legal strategies
speaking solely in terms of racial justice
examining burial pits and naked skulls

2.
sticking to issues that directly affect them
bemoaning the cautiousness of today's athletes
co-opting the arguments of their opposition
tracking Latino immigrants at the border

3.
supporting any effort to unionize
failing to generate meaningful responses
feeling the centipede in oneself
getting some good poems out of it

4.
rewriting the country's labor laws
seeing a psychic map of our obsessions
building electoral coalitions that will win
emphasizing the overlapping interests of the affluent

5.
slumbering until nightfall
setting this brain of mine afire
reaching irritably after fact & reason
shunning easy consolations

6.
subsidizing extinction industries
helping women victimized by male violence
doubling the sign-up bonus for volunteers
supporting the troops while doubting the war

7.
naming the dead
waiting for him to break silence
descending the steeps of the soughing twilight
assimilating foreign cultures

8.
freeing the slaves
admonishing those who do evil
stamping out political brushfires
democratizing the US

9.
getting in touch with the cable guys
swinging the birches
testing the waters
pushing radical music agendas

10.

Poems from the Book of Nanoseconds, #14

in the present day
up everywhere
money to squander

"I . . . wrote once: 'As poet I hold the most archaic values on
earth. They go back to the upper Palaeolithic: the fertility of
the soil, the magic of animals, the power-vision in solitude, the
terrifying initiation and rebirth, the love and ecstasy of the dance,
the common work of the tribe.'

"Why this going back into the roots and the past, instead of
leaping off into the future, I'm sometimes asked. But it's not in
time at all that we study our world and ourselves. There's no
close or far. We have, simply, the chance to fill out the whole
picture now, for the first time in human experience. It is begin-
ning to be possible to look in one wide gaze at all that human
beings have been and done on the whole planet, as one small
part of the web of Gaia the earth-life-Goddess.

"Then turn that over and over in the depths of deepest symbol-
holding store-house-consciousness mind, to maybe let another
flower of clarity rise from the compost of information. Such
flowers set us truly free and only come every few millenia.
I'm glad Myths & Texts is a warm part of the compost in this
end-of-the-century spectacle. I hope it helps toward growing
that flower that will be totally in the present.

GS 13.X.400077"

--Gary Snyder

fr. Myths & Texts
[New York: New Directions, 1978]
a reprinting of his collection originally published in
1960 by Totem Press / Corinth Books

Fragments from Whitman, 3

his interrogating thumb
on the granite floor,
shouted jokes, pelts of snow-balls

"At the New School once I was substituting for Henry Cowell,
teaching a class in Oriental music. I had told him I didn't know
anything about the subject. He said, 'That's all right. Just go
where the records are. Take one out. Play it and then discuss
it with the class.' Well, I took out the first record. It was an
LP of a Buddhist service. It began with a short microtonal
chant with sliding tones, then soon settled into a single loud
reiterated percussive beat. This noise continued relentlessly
for about fifteen minutes with no perceptible variation. A lady
got up and screamed, and then yelled, 'Take it off. I can't
bear it any longer.' I took it off. A man in the class then said
angrily, 'Why'd you take it off? I was just getting interested.'"

--John Cage

fr. Silence
[Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1961]

Works in Progress, 8

1.

maneuvering around car-sized potholes
designing legal strategies
speaking solely in terms of racial justice
examining burial pits and naked skulls

2.

sticking to issues that directly affect them
bemoaning the cautiousness of today's athletes
co-opting the arguments of their opposition
tracking Latino immigrants at the border

3.

supporting any effort to unionize
failing to generate meaningful responses
feeling the centipede in oneself
getting some good poems out of it

4.

rewriting the country's labor laws
seeing a psychic map of our obsessions
building electoral coalitions that will win
emphasizing the overlapping interests of the affluent

5.

slumbering until nightfall
setting this brain of mine afire
reaching irritably after fact & reason
shunning easy consolations

6.

subsidizing extinction industries
helping women victimized by male violence
doubling the sign-up bonus for volunteers
supporting the troops while doubting the war

7.

naming the dead
waiting for him to break silence
descending the steeps of the soughing twilight
assimilating foreign cultures

8.

freeing the slaves
admonishing those who do evil
stamping out political brushfires
democratizing the US

9.

Poems from the Book of Nanoseconds, #13

the small bird
a branching out
the piercing cry

"Plants and music. In a wacky book, The Secret Life of Plants,
a claim is made in all seriousness that plants are "tuned to the Music
of the Spheres" and react sensitively to music. An Indian authority
has testified that by playing ragas to an appreciative audiences of
asters, petunias, onions, sesame, radishes, sweet potatoes, and
tapioca he proved 'beyond any shadow of a doubt that harmonic
soundwaves affect the growth, flowering, fruiting, and seed-yields
of plants.'

"An American horticulturist piped some music into greenhouses,
claiming it caused his plants to germinate more quickly and bloom
more abundantly and more colorfully. A Canadian botanist played
a recording of Bach's violin sonatas in his garden, with the result
that despite the poor quality of soil, wheat grew better than in the
richest earth, demonstrating conclusively that 'Bach's musical
genius was as good or better than material nutrients,' Inspired by
these experiments, a botanist in Illinois played a recording of
Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue for some plants; they 'sprouted
earlier than those given the silent treatment, and their stems were
thicker, tougher, and greener.'

"The acme of scientific experimentation with the harmonic life of
plants was achieved by a mezzo-soprano who was a regular
soloist at Denver's Beach Supper Club. She played the taped
musical notes C and D on the piano every second, alternating
with periods of silence; as a result, her African violets, drooping
at first, began to flower joyously. No lover of rock 'n' roll, she
successfully proved that squashes hated rock music so much
that they actually grew away from the transistor radio broad-
casting it and even, in their desperation, tried to climb the slip-
pery walls of the greenhouse. On the other hand, the cucurbits
curled around the radio speaker broadcasting Beethoven and
Brahms. When she exposed corn and zinnias to rock music,
they grew in abnormal shapes and finally withered and died.
Plants subjected to the sounds of 'intellectual, mathematically
sophisticated music' reacted with such enthusiasm that they
bent toward the source of the music at angles of more than
60 degrees, some of them entwining the loudspeaker. Well,
Victor Hugo heard a tree sing when bathed in light, 'L'Arbre,
tout pénetré de lumière, chantait,' but then, he was a poet."

--Nicolas Slonimsky, Lectionary of Music
[New York: McGraw Hill, 1989]

Fragments from Whitman, 2

raftsmen and coalmen,
welcome to drink and meat
the simplest, a teacher

Works in Progress, 7

1.

maneuvering around car-sized potholes
designing legal strategies
speaking solely in terms of racial justice
examining burial pits and naked skulls

2.

sticking to issues that directly affect them
bemoaning the cautiousness of today's athletes
co-opting the arguments of their opposition
tracking Latino immigrants at the border

3.

supporting any effort to unionize
failing to generate meaningful responses
feeling the centipede in oneself
getting some good poems out of it

4.

rewriting the country's labor laws
seeing a psychic map of our obsessions
building electoral coalitions that will win
emphasizing the overlapping interests of the affluent

5.

slumbering until nightfall
setting this brain of mine afire
reaching irritably after fact & reason
shunning easy consolations

6.

subsidizing extinction industries
helping women victimized by male violence
doubling the sign-up bonus for volunteers
supporting the troops while doubting the war

7.

naming the dead
waiting for him to break silence
descending the steeps of the soughing twilight
assimilating foreign cultures

8.

"Like a car, a camera is sold as a predatory weapon--one that's as automated
as possible, ready to spring. Popular taste expects an easy, invisible, technol-
ogy. Manufacturers reassure their customers that taking pictures demands no
skill, that the machine is all-knowing, and responds to the slightest pressure
of the will. It's as simple as turning the ignition key or pulling the trigger.

"Like guns and cars, cameras are fantasy machines whose use is addictive.
However, contrary to the rhetoric of ordinary language and advertising, they
are not as lethal as guns or cars. For cars being marketed like guns there is
at least this much truth in the hyperbole: except in wartime, cars kill more
people than guns do. The camera does not kill, so it seems to be all a bluff--
like a man's fantasy of having a gun, knife, or tool between his legs. Still, there
is something predatory in the act of taking a picture. To photograph people
is to violate them, by seeing them as they never see themselves, by having
knowledge of them they can never have. To photograph is to turn people into
objects that can be symbolically possessed. To photograph someone is a
sublimated murder, just as the camera is the sublimation of a gun. Taking
pictures is a soft murder, appropriate to a sad, frightened time."

--Susan Sontag, "On Photography" (Oct. 1973)

Works in Progress, 6

1.
maneuvering around car-sized potholes
designing legal strategies
speaking solely in terms of racial justice
examining burial pits and naked skulls

2.
sticking to issues that directly affect them
bemoaning the cautiousness of today's athletes
co-opting the arguments of their opposition
tracking Latino immigrants at the border

3.
supporting any effort to unionize
failing to generate meaningful responses
feeling the centipede in oneself
getting some good poems out of it

4.
rewriting the country's labor laws
seeing a psychic map of our obsessions
building electoral coalitions that will win
emphasizing the overlapping interests of the affluent

5.
slumbering until nightfall
setting this brain of mine afire
reaching irritably after fact & reason
shunning easy consolations

6.
subsidizing extinction industries
helping women victimized by male violence
doubling the sign-up bonus for volunteers
supporting the troops while doubting the war

7.

Poems from the Book of Nanoseconds, #12

despite the chill
began to feel
snatched a broom

Fragments from Whitman, 1

light plays
armfuls are pack'd
there, I help

Poems from the Book of Nanoseconds, #11

in the direction of
the maids' quarters
the grove

Poems from the Book of Nanoseconds, #10

the boy
the question
six years he had

"On being a nobody. What if books of poetry were published according
to the 'Barnes Principle'? In the Barnes Foundation, the pictures have no
wall labels identifying artist, title, date, style, circumstances, etc. A single
artist's works are not grouped together but spread among others. One
wall displays a Tintoretto, a Renoir, a Cézanne, and one or two works
by lesser artists of different periods. I imagine books of poetry made
available to the public without illustrious dustjackets, blurbs, bios,
medals of merit embossed on the cover, hysterical reviews, etc. That
way, everybody becomes a nobody, except for the singularity and
expressiveness of the offering in the words.

"What if books and pamphlets were, as someone has proposed, displayed
at supermarket checkout counters? Yes, but let them be displayed
anonymously in plain wrappers. Browse and shop, shop and buy. Let
the poet who suggested that, and the poet suggesting this, be the first to
have their works so displayed."

--W. S. Di Piero

fr. "Out of Notebooks"
in Shooting the Works: on poetry and pictures
[Evanston, Illinois: Triquarterly Books, 1996]

Poems from the Book of Nanoseconds, #9

never succeeded
sense of well-being
this failure

Works in Progress, 5

1.
maneuvering around car-sized potholes
designing legal strategies
speaking solely in terms of racial justice
examining burial pits and naked skulls

2.
sticking to issues that directly affect them
bemoaning the cautiousness of today's athletes
co-opting the arguments of their opposition
tracking Latino immigrants at the border

3.
supporting any effort to unionize
failing to generate meaningful responses
feeling the centipede in oneself
getting some good poems out of it

4.
rewriting the country's labor laws
seeing a psychic map of our obsessions
building electoral coalitions that will win
emphasizing the overlapping interests of the affluent

5.
slumbering until nightfall
setting this brain of mine afire
reaching irritably after fact & reason
shunning easy consolations

6.

Works in Progress, 4

1.
maneuvering around car-sized potholes
designing legal strategies
speaking solely in terms of racial justice
examining burial pits and naked skulls

2.
sticking to issues that directly affect them
bemoaning the cautiousness of today's athletes
co-opting the arguments of their opposition
tracking Latino immigrants at the border

3.
supporting any effort to unionize
failing to generate meaningful responses
feeling the centipede in oneself
getting some good poems out of it

4.
rewriting the country's labor laws
seeing a psychic map of our obsessions
building electoral coalitions that will win
emphasizing the overlapping interests of the affluent

5.

Works in Progress, 3

1.
maneuvering around car-sized potholes
designing legal strategies
speaking solely in terms of racial justice
examining burial pits and naked skulls

2.
sticking to issues that directly affect them
bemoaning the cautiousness of today's athletes
co-opting the arguments of their opposition
tracking Latino immigrants at the border

3.
supporting any effort to unionize
failing to generate meaningful responses
feeling the centipede in oneself
getting some good poems out of it

4.

Poems from the Book of Nanoseconds, #8

air of purity,
household
fresh white wood

Poems from the Book of Nanoseconds, #7

in cold weather,
the path
the blunt impact

Works in Progress, 2

1.
maneuvering around car-sized potholes
designing legal strategies
speaking solely in terms of racial justice
examining burial pits and naked skulls

2.
sticking to issues that directly affect them
bemoaning the cautiousness of today's athletes
co-opting the arguments of their opposition
tracking Latino immigrants at the border

3.

Poems from the Book of Nanoseconds, #6

dark
rustling
flew away

Works in Progress

1.
maneuvering around car-sized potholes
designing legal strategies
speaking solely in terms of racial justice
examining burial pits and naked skulls

2.

Poems from the Book of Nanoseconds, #5

his open-necked kimono
bitter regret

Poems from the Book of Nanoseconds, #4

torii in front
stone steps,
in the dawn

"I placed one word beside another and finally with a great deal
of effort managed to create a whole sentence--naturally not one
that 'meant something' but one that was composed of word-
nuances. It was the hidden meaning that I was seeking--a kind
of Alchimie du Verbe. One word has its meaning and another
has its own, but when they are brought together something
strange happens to them: they have an in-between connotation
at the same time as they retain their original individual meanings . . . Poetry is this very tension-filled relationship between the words, between the lines, between meanings."

--Gunnar Ekelöf, tr. Auden & Sjöberg

Poems from the Book of Nanoseconds, #3

broad clearing
gravel path
full force

Poems from the Book of Nanoseconds, #2

clogs,
morning sun,
and green

Poems from the Book of Nanoseconds, #1

the frost
when
wooden

Mourner

When the new book arrived, he threw
the old book away. He made common

cause with known saxophonists, shabby
worn-out things unworthy of our notice.

Remarks containing acid he poured on
each and every, circulating among the

assembled mourners, whispering,
"What a pity!" and "Such a shame

he had to die so young, before his song
had ended." He used to say one learned

from one's mistakes, but he really knew
better. It's his turn now, I hesitate to say.


--Halvard Johnson

Rockstrewn Hills Join In: A Brief Requiem for Charles Ives

Almost yesterday the mountain lake
the character of his friend
What is behind it all?
Streams that flow through the garden
of consciousness

An evening train
Through pine-swept atmosphere
even the fishes in the pond
no longer hear rumbles

We paint it all with any color
left at hand--the heart left alone chain
No wagon hitched to it
Certain vision truths translate
into afterglow

Monotone days
more introspective than others
Swan songs heard faintly
in the offing

Words echo up
over tongue-and-groove flooring
A thorax or two at high
tide

Seasons like corn
You don't know them
unless you love them

Yet the mind universal
if the arc of Nature be completed

Let chips fall wherever
When sun blows through I'll say
any damn thing I feel like

[after texts by Charles Ives]

--Halvard Johnson