TC: Now (from Truth Game)

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Untitled (window), Berkeley, c. 1957: photo by Dorothea Lange from Dorothea Lange Collection, Oakland Museum of California

 

The imaginal representation of the mind,
the only world left to you. Continuing on. That poor
second best for which one would give everything
simply to have something to go on. The twisted
oaks. The stone steps descending
through the grove to where the light of morning
no longer bathes the contorted upper limbs
alone, but pierces them, at intervals, in the interstices,
with slender shafts that penetrate
the lower limbs and chequered
patterns of light and shade there made, all the way
to the bottom of the steep path.

 

Untitled (oak tree), Berkeley, 5 December 1956: photo by Dorothea Lange from Dorothea Lange Collection, Oakland Museum of California
 



 

Untitled (oak tree), Berkeley, 5 December 1956: photo by Dorothea Lange from Dorothea Lange Collection, Oakland Museum of California

 

Untitled (oak tree), Berkeley, 5 December 1956: photo by Dorothea Lange from Dorothea Lange Collection, Oakland Museum of California

Untitled, Berkeley, c. 1957: photo by Dorothea Lange from Dorothea Lange Collection, Oakland Museum of California




Untitled (garden steps), Berkeley, c. 1957: photo by Dorothea Lange from Dorothea Lange Collection, Oakland Museum of California

 


Untitled (garden steps), Berkeley, c. 1957: photo by Dorothea Lange from Dorothea Lange Collection, Oakland Museum of California




Untitled (garden steps), Berkeley, c. 1957: photo by Dorothea Lange from Dorothea Lange Collection, Oakland Museum of California




Untitled (garden steps), Berkeley, c. 1957: photo by Dorothea Lange from Dorothea Lange Collection, Oakland Museum of California




Untitled (garden), Berkeley, c. 1957: photo by Dorothea Lange from Dorothea Lange Collection, Oakland Museum of California

Tom Clark: Now, from Truth Game, BlazeVOX 2013

TC: The Black Spot (Scott After the Pole)

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Robert Falcon Scott (1868-1912), writing in his journal in the Cape Evans hut: photo by Herbert G. Ponting, 1911 (National Archives UK)

Had I but strength to stand, I'd walk out
Upon the ice and show you the strange sights
That glow within the black lights of the Pole.
Natural science cannot explain these lights.
Where nothing living breathes the personal
Must also hold its breath. The stirrings of the men
In restless sleep, their labored breathing.
I must write Wilson's mother a note, deceive
Her if I'm able as to the horror  
Of his end. I'll tell her of his courage,
His selflessness, his loyalty to the men.
She'll have no need for the truth, no more
Than did we to be undeceived. Not till  
Our bones are found will they find my letter.
"29th March. My dear Mrs. Wilson.
If this reaches you, Bill and I will have gone
Out together. We are very near it now  
And I should like you to know how splendid
He was at the end. Everlastingly 
Cheerful and ready to sacrifice  
Himself for others, never a word of blame
To me for leading him into this mess.  
He suffers only mild discomforts.
His eyes have a colorful blue look of hope
And his mind is peaceful with his faith. 
My whole heart goes out to you in pity."
Can't see my marks yet still can grip this stub
And make it move across the page. Black spots
In the dark, marking what cannot be shown.
Black spots blur on white paper: what can  
Be shown cannot be said. The hour grows late
For these meandering trains of thought  
Represented by blurred spots on white paper.
Connect the dots and the limits of my world
Will grow apparent to you. Where in it am I?
This riddle does not exist as problem
In your life, where the light of the personal
Shines. The solution of the problem  
Of life is the vanishing of the problem.  
I am the microcosm, thought Scott 
At the last, in the dark, as night closed in
Over permafrost. A black spot now his world
Growing to fill the whole vast snowbound landscape.



TC: The Black Spot (Scott After the Pole), from Feeling for the Ground, 2010

 

 
Robert Falcon Scott's South Pole party on his ill-fated expedition, from left to right at the Pole: Lawrence Oates (standing), Henry Bowers (sitting), Scott (standing in front of Union Jack flag on pole), Edward Wilson (sitting), Edgar Evans (standing). Henry Bowers (1883-1912) took this photograph on the day of the party's arrival at the Pole, 17 January 1912, using a piece of string to operate the camera shutter: photo from Leonard Huxley (ed.), The Return from the Pole, in Scott's Last Expedition (volume 1), New York, 1913 (National Archives UK)

Icebergs in McMurdo Sound, as seen from McMurdo Station during Scott's last expedition: photo by Herbert Ponting, 1910; image by Wayne Ray, 31 March 2008 (private collection of Bruce Parker, London, Ontario)

"The worst has happened... All the day dreams must go... Great God! This is an awful place": Robert Falcon Scott, diary entry, 17 January 1912, upon reaching the Pole, only to learn that Amundsen had preceded him by six weeks.

TC: The Pharaohs Sacrifice Themselves Before Her

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Goddess Nut, arched protectively over Earth and its inhabitants: photo by Golden Meadows, 2006

Time is the sweet cheat that unhinged
The Egyptians. The fugitive object
Of desire keeps fleeing, the symbol
Denoting speed in physics must now  
Precede any expression of her value.
Algebra of desire yields to total
Calculus of need: instant nothingness
In which there flows an invisible current.
When it flows through the tomb, one is forced
To bow down and worship an obscure,
Mysterious and implacable goddess.

Pharaoh Horemheb and goddess Amunet (as an aspect of Hathor): from the Tomb of Horemheb, Valley of the Kings at Thebes: photo by Jean-Pierre Dalbéra, 2002

TC: Philip Whalen: April Showers Bring Rain?

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Cherry blossoms in rain: photo by Steve Gravrock, 6 March 2011

Lots of
wind and rain
the most fragile
cherry blossoms
the thinnest
rhododendron petals
not even wrinkled

Rain on rhododendron: photo by Robert Lz, 30 April 2005

Rhododendrons in rain: photo by ironacres, 17 May 2010

The sandpiper
all alone, usually
runs with a cloud
alone today, eating
sea-bugs -- where does he
live at? Where are his books?

Western Sandpiper, Cattle Point, Uplands, near Victoria, B.C.: photo by Alan D. Wilson, 2007

Philip Whalen: April Showers Bring Rain? 7:iv:65 (excerpts)

TC: The Greeks

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Scarlet cloud: photo by JarNondo, 1 January 2007

Deep in the air the past appears

As unreal as air to the boy

Or the apple of the world

To a girl whose eyes are pale and mild

Her hair is probably not real gold

Only a good imitation of the Greeks’

Like a map of that world of early days

Where woman lives on a scarlet cloud

While man in colorless blunt noon

Splashes up at the blue variables

That pass by on an airplane of words

Into the sky which distributes gifts of

Rain and light over our lives equally

Infinite gifts we are unable to behold

Sky: photo by Cristina Bozzoli, 2008 

 

This post dedicated to the eminent Greek scholars Isaac and Oliver

TC: Robert Creeley: After Lorca

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Malaguilla, Provincia de Guadalajara, Castilla-La Mancha, Spain: photo by Häkan Svensson, 2004

for M. Marti

The church is a business, and the rich
are the business men.

........................................... When they pull on the bells, the

poor come piling in and when a poor man dies, he has a wooden
cross, and they rush through the ceremony.

But when a rich man dies, they
drag out the Sacrament
and a golden Cross, and go doucement, doucement
to the cemetery.

And the poor love it
and think it's crazy.

Olivar en Alcalá la Real, Jaén, España: photo by Michelangelo-36, 2005

Robert Creeley: After Lorca, 1952

TC: Vicente Huidobro: Poetry Is a Celestial Transgression

Beech tree graffiti. None of the usual initials inside a heart shape are on this tree by the B6397 near Smailholm. The smooth thin bark on a beech tree has always been a target for youngsters with a penknife: photo by Walter Baxter, 9 February 2008

I'm not here but at the depths of this not being here
There is a waiting for myself
And this vigil is another way of being here a waiting
For myself to come back into myself
While waiting I go out
Into other
Objects
In this going out I give away a little of my life
To certain trees certain stones
That have been waiting for me
All these years

Tired of waiting they have given up hope and fallen back
Into themselves

I'm not and I am
I'm not here and I am here
In a waiting
State
They wanted
My language
To express them
And I wanted theirs
To express
Them
And in this lay the mistake the great
Error

This pathetic state
Carving myself deeper into these plants
My clothes falling away from my bones
My bones reclothing themselves in bark
I'm beginning to feel like I've become
A tree I've been changing myself
Into so many other things how dolorous
How tender

I could cry out but this cry would frighten away the desired
Transubstantiation
Must keep silent Waiting completely
Silent


 
Vicente García-Huidobro Fernández (1893-1948): La Poesía es un atentado celeste from Últimos Poemas (Later Poems), 1948; English version by Tom Clark

Vicente Huidobro: Juan Gris, c. 1917

Yo estoy ausente pero en el fondo de esta ausencia
Hay la espera de mí mismo
Y esta espera es otro modo de presencia
La espera de mi retorno
Yo estoy en otros objetos
Ando en viaje dando un poco de mi vida
A ciertos árboles y a ciertas piedras
Que me han esperado muchos años

Se cansaron de esperarme y se sentaron

Yo no estoy y estoy
Estoy ausente y estoy presente en estado de espera
Ellos querrían mi lenguaje para expresarse
Y yo querría el de ellos para expresarlos
He aquí el equívoco el atroz equívoco

Angustioso lamentable
Me voy adentrando en estas plantas
Voy dejando mis ropas
Se me van cayendo las carnes
Y mi esqueleto se va revistiendo de cortezas
Me estoy haciendo árbol Cuántas cosas me he ido convirtiendo en otras cosas...
Es doloroso y lleno de ternura

Podría dar un grito pero se espantaría la transubstanciación
Hay que guardar silencio Esperar en silencio

Vicente Huidobro (1893-1948): photographer unknown, n.d. (Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid)
 

Tumba Vicente Huidobro, Cartagena (Chile): photo by provinciasanantonio, 10 August 2009



Vicente Huidobro -- Tout à coup: Pablo Picasso, 1921; image by Iliazd, 30 January 2009

Cienfuegos #33, Santiago, donde vivió Vicente Huidobro: photo by romántica santiaguina (Sara Ruiz), 23 October 2012