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Entries in writing (445)

Tuesday
Jun282011

practice smiling

Namaste,

act of writing
touches minute pressure
dances on clean white virgin parchment

distracted clear focused voices
inside a seed of consciousness
bridging knowledge and imagination
between two crutches
feeling pressure under arms
hands on handles
support lightness

someone eases my voice
a reading one, a listening one, a writing one
glowing ink
chiseling paper

an arrow of impatience 
channels beauty's awkward shyness
this seed of day
blind sensations 
missing limbs speak their eternal loss

Metta.

Thursday
Mar032011

The Midnight Court

I entertained visitors, fished the Glen Malure river in complete solitude, peeled potatoes and carrots for stews, painted watercolors, discussed road adventures with vagabonds, wrote and played chess by firelight. 

Pawn takes pawn as players attempt to control the middle of the board attacking and defending positions simultaneously. It was about position and material. We made the necessary sacrifices after the beginning game through the middle game to the end game. 

Andy, a German visitor said India was once lost in a chess game between two kings. We played in the dark of night illuminated by fireplace light as peat fires roared their way up the flue. Quick moving violent storms pummeled the place.

“That’s a dangerous move,” he said as my knight escaped a pin.

“Yes, but it’s elegant.”

“We destroy ourselves eventually.”

“Yes, as long as we enjoy the process. Your move.”

In the morning Susan related a dream from literature she was reading, by Brian Merriman, a merry man while doing her nails near the river.

“Have you heard about The Midnight Court?” 

“No,” someone said. “Tell us.”

“It’s about a fellow who falls asleep and has a dream where he is taken before a court of women who condemn him to be punished for all the men in their knowledge. How women should have the right to marriage and sex but often meet with disappointment and rejection by men who could easily have become their lovers and husbands.” 

Monday
Feb212011

Affected

"Keep your hand moving," whispered the writing teacher to 80 robots. 

The foreign teacher wearing Tang Dynasty clothing filled with dragons, yin-yang balance, a Phoenix rising, a crying crane flying through mist covered mountains while emperors danced with concubines inside Forbidden Cities' red lacquered emotional curiosities where visions of detached ebullient phosphorus streams dove into silence beside abstractions of zither tonal quality in extreme bliss was a manifestation of phenomenal superior detective analysis and forty questions of the soul marking marketing examinations at 7:00 p.m. followed by utter exhaustion.

We escaped the sterile Chinese university on mountain bikes, singing, “We know so much and understand so little.”  

“People are more affected by how they feel than by what they understand,” bright star Leo said. “On day one my teacher said, ‘I only want you to bring two things to class. Your ears.’”

We sharpened sticks on stones carving paleo-Leo-lithic cave paintings on soft clay walls. Leo edged circles, rectangles, triangles, curves, lines and dots. He carved his name backwards for future historians and archeologists to get the gist or, as an unemployed academic financial analyst on Wall Street would, could, should declare, “English On Line.”

Being hunters-gathers we salvaged assorted garbage mired in mud. We created a semi-permanent temporary recycled art project on the canyon bottom. 

We assembled statues using sticks, soggy faded purple underwear, a filtered worker’s mask with a broken elastic strap, beer bottles, soda cans, green string, cigarette packages, lost feathers, sharp needled pine cones, coral blue seashells, orange peels, melted candles, dried condoms, fractured leaves, bird calls and worn and torn useful Lung-Tao prayer flags from Lhasa, Tibet.

In nature they drilled for cauliflower.

Thursday
Jan202011

T.S. Elliot Prize

Greetings,

Brian Turner is one of ten major poets shortlisted for the T.S. Elliot Prize on January 23rd and 24th. Readings will be held at the Royal Festival Hall in London.

Brian's recent book, Phantom Noise, was published last April by Alice James Books. It continues his poetic journey begun with Here Bullet about his time and experiences in Iraq. 

We met by chance in Cambodia last February on a boat exploring a floating village. Delightful. 

Poetry Book Society 

Metta.

 

Saturday
Sep042010

vapor expression

amputee teacher
on his rolling chair
eats noodles

people who may not know
how to write
watch someone scratch lines 
in the breeze of voices
clattering metal pans

laughter silence

a son leads his blind father
beating a drum
by a thread