Bhanu Kapil

Dropping scraps of paper, one by one.

She talked about eating dinner like a bird, a bird at St. Johns.
Hungry.
Meat in the belly,

A girl, rescued from the cave sheets. Incredible.

At the circus, with all the sights and smells, a white eagle and a black panther are mating. This could be unrelated.

Nursing in the cave, hunger. Sucking the breast for food. Being carried.

Then the panther is killed. More blood.

The papers are still thrown in scraps.

A cat in the tree, biology. Study. Articulate words.

Country, the jungle is organized. Everything is organized. More very Articulate words.
Dad as a boy eating butter, being beaten, and caring but not caring. Do what is necessary.

Scars. Protein. Perfect feet. Lots to do with the perfect feet, and the sharp grass of the jungle now cultivated as a farm. More blood.

Then at the end, she throws everything at the audience.

I would write more of a responce, but really there's not much to say. It's like looking at a giant red object. It's giant. It's red. It's not really doing a whole lot for me, to be quite honest.... but there it is.

Jungle

I remember a jungle.

It was a long time ago. The grass was sharper on my feet, probably because I had a whole lot less weight bearing down on that sea of green reeds- or maybe it was because our backyard was filled with crab grass. At any rate, it wasn’t real pleasant, but then again it’s not the quest itself that means anything. It’s the stories coming back after the expeditions that are the draw. The pictures you make up in the moment.

I would enjoy cutting the jungle in those days, putting it back in its place week in and week out, like taming my own small plot of the world. It was my jungle.

Now it’s interesting. I don’t cut the grass anymore, I pay rent to a corporation and they come by to do the cutting and raking as needed. But I still live in my jungle, only here, it’s better.

The old priest that I live with is terribly British, and the ideas of the empire still sail in and out of his sharp but forgetful mind. He is the commander of his vessel, and orders it against the forces of creation that in their chaos and given half a chance would tear him to pieces. But he has no fear.

Our house is surrounded by forests. The trees tower overhead, sixty, seventy and eighty feet in the air, around the perimeter of the lawn and deep into the dark and trackless jungle. The vines of poison ivy, wild grapes and Virginia creepers wrap them like they are the Ladies and Lords of their domain, choking and killing certain trees as the vulgar crowds grow restless. But the fury and politics of the jungle hold their ground at the edge of the lawn, for fear of the swinging machetes and tiger lilies that stand guard on the line.

You shall come thus far and no farther.

Inside the delightful little patch of freedom the warm sunlight comes in, and gives life to the most spectacular little garden. Here, amid all the chaos, is an ordered plot of land. Nothing grows without permission, and each flower and shrub courts the favor of Father with rich blooms and color. The uncooperative will be given a chance on appeal (of and to clemency) by being moved to the fronts, where if they prove their valor in the face of the jungle they may regain entry to the coveted soils. But their society is ordered by a trained hand and gives delight to the eyes.

As I patrol the edges of my domain, I take note of their keeping.

Jungled

Gracious,
green, garden.
Growing oh so sweetly.
The flowers bring joy in moonlight or sunlight.

Freedom!

Beauty!

Do you not see? Peace is yours at last. All you have longed for, all you have sought.
It’s interesting, the wild and the tame,
Which does your heart most long for?
The wild is sweet,
The tame is rich,
Their manager will speak to them both on the matter.

Life!

Delights!

Light for the eyes and hope for the soul!

What more can we hope for- living in this world of jungles?
We can hope. Emotions are not colorless intangibles, but the feelings that well up inside of us at the sight of what is good. We don’t have to see red to know blood, the color in the eye is an emotion to the brain the same as any mental picture.

Jungling

The stealthy hunter was jungling. His eyes twitching like a cat’s, and the machete in his hand like a tiger’s claw. Jungling was a new sport, he invented it himself. It’s what you call going roaming in the woods and chopping till the blisters bleed your hands dry and the insects are biting and stinging and you almost wish you could throw yourself into the fifth stream you’ve crossed this afternoon.

But he was not swimming, oh no, he was jungling. He was jungling in a delta, through the thorns and trees and bushes and webs. His garden was at the top of the hill, base camp, along a trail he had jungled himself earlier that year. The paving stones and patio made a nicer floor than the mud of a dammed creek-bed, but resting and swinging gently in the hammocks could wait.

He was jungling. Part of the hunt is the stalking of prey, part of the kill is the swipe and the slash, but often times the quarry is dead before the hunter even sets foot on the trail. This is because an idea in the head is worth more than a fat herd of deer surprised by a crazy man dropping out of a tree on them with an ax. Preparing the ground, knowing the terrain, and studying the tracks weeks and months in advance give the hunter what he needs to bring down his prey.

He wasn’t hunting though, our friend with the blade, and such thoughts were not of such relevance. His quarry were small trees, cut down in a single swipe, and paths, hidden among all the brush. Onward he chopped, and none could stay him in his burning quest.

Sword

I am ten. My weapon is plastic, but I attack again and again even as it bends and breaks from the blows. My Father has another blade, shorter and fatter than mine but not by much, he alternates with my little brother as together they take me on. I always attack with fury. It doesn't hurt, I get smacked a few times sure, but I am in a comfortable living room jumping on couches and off the arms of furniture. My dad tells me not to, I'll break them. But this is battle. I am ten.

The sword divides. "One who does not have a sword should sell his cloak and buy one." In the Bible a sharp two-edged sword separates bone from marrow and soul from flesh. It pierces to the heart. What is a sword? It is an extension of the arm, a partner in a dance of death against an opponent and his partner. It is hardened by fire and made of steel, sometimes it is quenched in blood and sharpened and otherwise used to kill. It sings when swung, whistling through the air. The sword divides.

I am sixteen. Six years later. I am in high school, and I have made for myself more dangerous weapons. The swords are now forged of PVC pipe and foam, but when swung like baseball bats they leave bruises welts and sometimes they draw blood. I beat many, but when I fight an ex-military guy I find myself flat on my back on the pavement, sword knocked from my hand. I grow tough, cracking my neck and knuckles I jump back in to take it. Often my glasses are knocked from my face and skid across the black tar and gravel, but I learn to swing the great swords single handed. With either the left or the right I windmill the power back at my foes, inventing anew an ancient sport. Six years later. I am sixteen.

The sword unites. Common groups of people with common ideas take action together. They form alliances, patrols, divisions and companies. A community, international, called the Sword of the Spirit. They started right here in Ann Arbor, now they are tens of thousands strong, with communities in every continent and dozens of countries. More countries than I can keep track of, and still their unity grows. I was born into this community, we pray for each other and for the world. We go on mission trips to foreign lands and local slums. We fight our foes together, as one. The sword unites.

I am twenty-two. Six years later. I no longer am hit by the swords, unless I want to teach a skittish new beginner that it's ok to hit the other person. You can't win if you only go for their sword, a sword can be held out as a distraction while moving in for the kill. The focus is on the other person, or persons when you fight a whole contingent of swordsmen together. I train my boys to be tough, and when they can take it I hit them back. They learn to move quickly, their reflexes sharpen and their footwork becomes light and agile. They make their own weapons now, and fight even when I'm not around. I still can take them when I fight with a sword in each hand, and I have the advantage of stronger arms than they have, but fighting is a young man's sport. Maybe my heart will stay young forever. I hope so. Six years later. I am twenty-two.

Goldberg final post

I agree with the instructor in "claim your writing", where she tells the students to recognize a good piece of their writing and claim it as their own. I often have a problem doing that, I'll write something and never be sure of how good it is. I feel like I am looking for the perfect reader, and that I won't trust anyone else until I hear from them and hear that my writing is good. It's helpful to work on something and then approach it with the mindset of "this is good. I like this piece."

In addition I also appreciated the parts in Samuri where it talks about cutting apart your writing for the pieces. This is also a helpful technique, because I'll find something I like while being unsure of the rest, and then I tend to be unsure of how to proceed. Cutting and editing even large parts of texts may be what I need.

Rereading and Rewriting is actually something I do a lot. I learned this skill with an art class, to put aside a painting or a drawing and come back to it the next day or a few days later. My hangup with this method is I often find myself proofreading, editing, and rewriting my entire story every time I sit down to look at it, so I don't get a lot of new material out of my system. Sometimes I just need to put text on a page and then forget about it, rather than mull over it for hours on end. But I like the idea behind this chapter.

And the last part was a little much zen for me- but oh well. We knew that was the philosophy behind this book from early on, I disagree with big chunks of it, but that's life...

Or death, as the case may be.

Don't let me be lonely

In all honesty I didn't mind this book.

Compared to our other readings this one made a lot more sense. The focus is very human, on the pain of life, and it doesn't run and hide from anything.

If something looks or feels fake, that is stated. There isn't some huge deal about nothing- there are gut reactions, such as reading a lable on a bottle of pills that says you can't give them away and then desiring to give them away anyway, but it doesn't say that the whole world should simply burn.

The author leaves thoughts openended, so the reader is at liberty to finish them or put them down.

Drugs are a huge part of this entire book. There are many facts to life, and few solutions. Somehow you have to put all the pieces together to make them fit, and if they don't fit, you need to fill in the gaps. This is a dangerous game to play, because those gaps if you're truly honest with yourself often times cannot be filled. They leave you, as the book would say, lonely.

Lonliness is not a curse, not a poison, it is a gift. You hear about monks of every religion abstaining from food, drink, sex, and other "worldly" supports to a normal functioning human life. There is something powerful in the void, something they seek, and something this author also seeks- although she doesn't find it in the end. She's still looking. She's looked at God, but He remains one of those unanswered questions.

It's easier to take a pill than have to think and sort things out, but the beauty of life is that it does make sense if you look at it through the One who is real.

The salty sandy stinging stapled silly putty surreptitiously slid silently slowly smoothly stealthily from my hand. Enoch sighed.

Where did it go?

My dexterous dedicated decisive digits
waved wildly wandering under the wet warm waters of the sea.
Stupid salty stinging silly putty. The staples to the sand sliced
rough real rocks really rolling (reeling) relentlessly away,
staples don't stick to sand.

The troubling terrible tremendous tide took tar to the putty, trampling
initial idolized icy ideas of disposing the
dirty dinghy dank dumb drudge from my dexterous digits in the
wild wandering waves. Enoch stared.

Whatever.

Which way will wily wanderers walk when waving wacko driver down?

Wherever.

When whilst whamming whales with wide water slides, who cares?
They all do.

"And that's the beauty of it, one more time than otherwise would have made sense.
Walking with wandering whales on the waves, whacking the wild wackos with whatever, when and where will it all end?" He thought.

"It's ending.

Right.

About.

Now."

11/9 Toscano

Blick! Blicking blick of a blick!

Blick blick blick.

I sat, and society was torn up, the sacred, the profane, power from grace the world was turned on it's head. We learn we can't turn a blick eye on such things. They will escape and blick us all in our sleep.

It's culture really, at the heart of it. To blick. To blave. To blaaaaave. Once we say it we know exactly why we right, why we wrong, blicking's more blickerous than you otherwise might blick.

Blue.

Blick.

Beware. Of Blick. He's a mean fellow.

Not troubled entirely by the cannon fire, the jungle was a quiet and homey place. Standing peacefully on her head, Robert began yelling at his friends.

BLICK IT ALL!!!!!!!! WHAT THE BLICK ARE YOU DOING???????

They were good friends. They would understand.

The quest had gone well lately, there was an abundance of corn in the harvest. Rich, juicy blue corn of every flavor. Sapphire corn, cheap, but the price of ethanol will only go up in the future.

Have you invested enough in corn futures? I recommend it. So does Robert, but be careful, he yells.

Casting one's lot with the sound of the door slamming shut the message is clear. Do you still not get it? I said BLICK IT ALL!!!!!!!!!! We're good friends. You and I. You understand me. Sort of. Maybe. Close enough. We'll try again tomorrow, I can't stand here all day forever tomorrow on this vine on one foot on one hand asking the same old questions again and again without the hope of the truth of the joy of the fun of the real answer and struggle but finally we come to the complete and total finished final end of an end.

Blick out, my friends.

Incubation

Well, sadly this is another demented book. :(

The imagery is vivid. Laloo is a character with many shards too her life, like a broken mirror crushed in a bleeding hand. There are images of maternity, but the child is a monster. There are images of adventure and travel and expedition, but the trip is filled with rape and murder. There is a bond with a father who understands her passion for something else, yet her dependence on him is only for what he can give her or what she can steal from him. From cars to money to a murdered girl with her heart wrapped in a tee shirt on the side of the road, no wait, I mean a dead girl in the back of a truck driven by a random sicko- the images are nothing but twisted.

Twisted isn't art, demented isn't beauty, blood and rape aren't love.

To that I say with another's words: "brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."

This book doesn't disturb me, I've read worse and I know people who have had worse done to them. It doesn't shock me, it doesn't free me, it doesn't give me anything but insight into a longing for something that she does not have- and her final desire to die rather than choose life.

After her accident from throwing herself out of a car to avoid being raped, and after giving birth to a twisted monster of a machine- Laloo needs help or she will die, and she chooses to wear her red dress and keep walking. She won't make it, her illness of the mind has corrupted her body and her love for freedom has been misplaced into an unhealthy obsession which brings nothing but slavery to her true heart. She tries to lead others, to guide them, but she is blind and falling off a cliff into the sharp rocks below even as she speaks.

Readings

Enoch grumbled. It had been a long day, he was tired, his robes were a mess, and to top it all off he couldn't keep his eyes open. The master was being unreasonable. Oh sure, you could demand that an 8 year old sit still and listen all day then study all night, but that didn't make you sane for doing it...

The book was depressing. It was about a crazy girl who had a crazy doctor tell her to do crazy things until she went crazy. He needed a bite to eat, something to clear his mind from the monotony he had been chewing on all afternoon. Who cares if she was crazy!!! Ok!!! Fine!!!

Outside the cool autumn air was calling, the crisp leaves were every dazzling shade of red and yellow and orange, and the gardens out back were slowly fading into the death of winter- preparing to sleep. Enoch went to put on a cloak, his dark brown robes were fine for summer, but needed a supplement in these colder months. The fire needed a log, reminding Enoch once again of his crackling stomach.

He wasn't a type. He didn't have to listen to crazy people who thought he was. He could just leave. He also didn't need to sit still in a room and say almost nothing savoring the uncomfortable silence, silence was to be enjoyed- but not in the company of strange men. Or cats. Kat had just come into the room, he was also hungry.

"Something about that time of year" Enoch thought, over a few scones he had pilfered from the kitchen, "makes us all begin to store food like chipmunks. Interesting.

He re-opened the books.

City Eclogue

This is an interesting book. 3 points of particular interest would be the urban, beauty, and American themes that run through the poems.

The first point is the urban. Time and time again there's the "our stone" and "our steel", such as the poem "Sit In What City We're In" where it also talks about "our hive grid" and the lines of the country. It makes you think.

The second point would be the beauty, as we walk through the country and experience what it has to offer.

The third point is the American, where it talks about the greatness that the country offers, the stores and shops, and the potential for a society that's willing to grow. (Also with consequences if it fails to learn.)

2 reponses

response 1:

These poems are gruesome. Coming from a world of hate and despair, where life has no meaning, the cynical mind will attempt to look at reality and further tear it apart.

"Tell me what you know about dismemberment."

It's a sick title for a "poem". I don't mean just disgusting either, I mean mentally unstable. I should know, I've had relatives in the psych ward, and in prison for such depravities. Mental breakdowns, attempted manslaughter- just because something destroys does not mean experiencing it will enrich the human experience, the human experience can also be poisoned.

response 2:

For not being about love, these poems certainly are sensual. Cole Swenson, from "Noon":
"let me touch your lip...
...the impossible mouth or curve
within a curve what the body does
so certainly know, please"


There is a marked contrast from "love poetry" and "non-love poetry", but I don't think people really understand what love is. They reject love, which is hard, and replace it with lust, which is empty. And so they are bitter, and resolve to hate and lust and despair. Learn love instead.

I make my way through the squabbling blankets, the muffins call my snapping teeth.
With zeal, I drink down the garlic lobster, the hunger is quick to leave my belly.
But the feathers in the pillow call me back, I bridge the distance to my bed like a bull in the banks of wall street.
I am reminded of the bristling muffins…

Casually walking over the bridge I watch the ice that blankets the river and bristles in the rocks. The lobsters feather along the bottom of the squabble, but fresh bull and muffins in the hunger of my belly would taste better.
My teeth would also make quick work of the garlic, drinking down the juice.

Quick drinking has once again led me to the bridge.
Below the squabbling river bed, the leaves sink like feathers.
I throw in the garlic lobster, my hunger is sated.
For a while I consider one more of the bristling muffins, but the fat bull belly of over-eating keeps me away.

The death of Love

Love died.
Love ran free and with all life,
Love cried.
Love reached out and wiped away the strife,
Love tried.
Love was broken, and serrated with the knife,
Love sighed.
Love killed death, which through the world was rife,
When Love died.

Adonai yihoshia

Pursued, I fled.
I was hunted, there was no where left to turn.
I tried to run, my heart began to burn.
The tracker, He bled.

I was angry, my path went every way.
I was confused, and violently led astray.
He followed me, my wits began to fray-
And suddenly I was dead.

My life gone, my anger did not subside.
I did my best, thus far I had really tried.
It didn't matter, His blood wasn't satisfied-
I laid there on my bed.

I cried, I couldn't have any rest.
The bloody tracker, took my heart out from my chest.
I was at peace, was this for the best?
I laid there gushing red.

New life in me, my eyes were opened again.
I took fresh heart, away from what I'd been.
The sorrow gone now, and joy my frown did wren,
Strangely, my soul was fed.....