i like these ideas. and i'm mostly in accordance. many vantages must be pursued, surveyed, many veils must be lifted to find the right bride. in his poem "the lost hotels of paris," gilbert wrestles with this idea of language's ability to successfully express while being finite and mutable:
"Ginsberg came to my house one afternoon
and said he was giving up poetry
because it told lies, that language distorts.
I agreed, but asked what we have
that gets it right even that much.
We look up at the stars and they are
not there. We see the memory
of when they were, once upon a time.
And that too is more than enough"
i'm quite dazzled by his harmony and grace at answering this question of our own inexactness and the inexactness of words themselves. of course we are empowered. it's not recognizing that empowerment that causes a dissonance, a separation of the interpretor, the interpreted, and the outgoing message. these are profitable thoughts.
and as we have spoken before, these thoughts now--right now--need to have an exact power, movement, dynamism. "engagement" as hoagland said "is the success of a poem." how to be engaging and dramatic without gimmick or fancy.
how to create art that is its own solar panel, its own sense of creation, and nourishment. its energy must be a system borne to serve it. requiring the work of the artist, and most importantly, the work of the dislocated, silent viewer and listener.
but these are only thoughts of craft--not action. we must be fascinated and obsessed by the ability to assemble the car ourself, put it on the lot, sell it--even then the car must start, must have utility and purpose--long after we have created it.
we must also be concerned with maintaining the car, facilitating its longevity. action, action, action. rimbaud, berryman, bender, manning, pound, o'hara, bruce smith, bukowski, jarrell, w. owen, jeffers, d. young, lerner even, and eliot even, these are a short list of harnessing energy and releasing it in tempests.
beware of dog! i'm not going to make love to you all day, i'm going to fuck you till the thighs and buttock and tongue and triceps will no longer support the act. till we sleep and dream of being soft again with each other. there is a place for strength and softness. tristan, the eternal lover and child of all sadness, holding a sword and a harp. this fight is until you cannot stand, then crushing the esophagus and the skull.
we can talk philosophy and jargon all 25 hours of every day, but in the 26 hours of night, when we're all alone and stranded, we will have to fight for ourselves, we'll have to beat down every last one of ourselves. no punches pulled, no tooth left attached.
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