Doomed to a total failure in a deaf world of ignorance and indifference he inexorably kept on cutting out his diamonds, his dazzling diamonds, the mines of which he had such a perfect knowledge.
Stravinsky, 1959
It happens like this:
- what does a child know about
the technique?
We quit piano
long before the teachers
allow us the honor of Shoenberg.
Goethe's Faust
we put it down, Remember?
instead we went to find Robinson and "that" piano
those red socks and the cat called Lonesome
curled and sleeping through the endless ringing phone
the book of Immortal poems
Hart Crane's answer to Eliot's Wasteland
"For the Marriage of Helen and Faustus" this isn't meant to be didactic
put it down.
"A Little History of Modern Music" - tucked in a book
twenty five cents at the Hospital Thrift Shop on a steel rain Holy Saturday
all day thinking about the women who guarded
Christ's tomb, Jesus' descent to Hell and Gilgamesh.
Cochise, Arizona, a ghost town Doc Holliday and Big Nose Kate
oven air -- prostitutes and killing a copper head
in a far off canyon
Notes
-- each one like a star --
thrown from a fist
forms a constellation
and then you clear your throat very close to my ear.
What did you think
Comments
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The title drew me in, by way of Webern's string quartets... (where I also ran across that quote you presented) and by way of late, late-night meanderings in and out of AP...
I did not 'get' your piece at first (then I was distracted by the abstract discourse below, where I drifted into that derivative piece of observational psychology! )
so I came back to your write here and I finally made a connection of sorts- the whispering voice at the end was a practical mind bringing a creative mind back down to earth... a voice Webern could afford to (blissfully?) ignore...
I see a mention of 'notebook' below, so I'm assuming you've depicted the creative mind at work with a collage of old notes... (no other way to explain it, other than 'stream of thought'...! )
three clappies for inspiration (both in the zestful exchanges below and for my interpretation of them)...
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wow
this is my new favorite by you - you, netting the air for poetry with webbed fingers
oven air!!! just there by itself, unassuming, ostensibly innocuous. oven-motherfucking-air. I love that. Not that you compare the hot air to that in an oven, because it isn't that; that would be boring. No. Just "oven air" because the air in the oven is not the air outside. It is hotter, dryer, and energized with purpose. Like prostitutes.
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Lisa
I get the impression that the last line not only wraps up the entire poem but takes me back to the what does the child know/we know about the technique. It's a question of learning how to effectvely communicate what we know or think we know. Maria -
i was referred to you from the pages of night hope and am certainly grateful to her that i read your work. extremely well written and i am hoping to read more from you in the very near future. viyanna rosemarie
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I really like this.
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It is a matter of "becoming", isn't it?
(you are, only potentially--the art, and/or the harsh breath near your ear, allows for increments--
basically becoming a Woman. (not I am, since we never are, exactly)
see here how it goes,
birth first verse,
girl,
then
Now, Intellect
Now, Action
Now interior
now observation,
an aside,
then the Other
Investigations.
might drop "twelve tone" (explanatory), and returned to in last line under another context. The word "technique" runs tha gamut and is the true heart of the poem, do not limit it...
the book of Immortal poems, might be immoral, the greatest of Immortal poems are immoral to the time in which they are composed, since they often contrary to prevailing attitudes.
Christ's tomb, Jesus' descent to Hell and Gilgamesh.
Christ's tomb, Jesus' descent to Hell, and Gilgamesh.
oopsers: a thought,
jesus' descent to Hell, the tomb, and Gilgamesh.
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I know very little about music & composing, really. I only know what I like. You always provide an education, an enlightenment, within your poetry, perhaps unintentionally. Webern had such an interesting face - such seriousness, such depth of character ingrained within the lines. His compositions based on poems by Ranier Maria Rilke, Stefan George, George Trakl intrigue me; I like the idea of poetry inspiring music, as music often inspires poetry. As for your poem, the final stanza anchors it in place, yet lifts it up beyond the grasp of mere parchment. I also enjoyed the reference to Doc Holliday; that entire culture has always fascinated me. I've visited a few of the places where the cowboys & the lawmen had it out - also some of the places where the more notorious gunmen hid out while planning their next moves. Well done, Lisa. 
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I can't believe this- I was lying awake in bed last night and I was thinking of a poem you did a few years ago- notes from your jotter...and I was thinking of how for a couple of weeks I had phrases rattling around that I should have written down and thought again of your notebooks and wondered when you were going to go through them again, et voila.
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"i tried something else"
doesn't belong in a cubist painting
it is/paints the poem
all the rest belongs there
and it could be anything
and anything else
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i don't really know if this qualifies. it maybe more abstract expressionism --- do you think?
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a cubist painting dissects an object to offer more than a bi-dimensional view
tries to make the object appear as if it is watched simultaneously from all angles
and that because a canvas is a flat space
now words, sounds have a bit of a different dynamic
and I'm not talking only about imagery -
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yeah i'm very very familiar with cubism with regard to painting --- i'm struggling with the concept in poetry though.
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Could be--in the literal, as opposed to the pictorial--a way might be found in nesting, (((0)))--to open the inner eye, to unfold, and then to cascade--
"Nude descending a staircase", not so much "to say" but rather to reveal. -
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shouldn't all poetry do that though...? -
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poetry doesn't reveals anything
it veils the eros
so that the sensual mystery of the secret becomes focus
"poetry" that reveals is nothing else but advertising
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well... try to focus on multiple verbs with a single subject
that changes accordingly
I know there is (no) grammar notion for that
but there is no real substitution for cubism either
unless you try to be aether -
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nah. i have to have the concept arrive to me on its own or else the poem feels like con. stealing phrases and stuff is one thing -- but the "origin" the seed has to come from my muse.
i pulled it from the contest - definitely "feels" more abstract expressionism in a way -- to me. ah well. it is good to be struggling with a concept but the "cubist poem" may just be something eluding me for a reason at this time.
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cubism is the temporal reduction of a sphere
I think it ofers more freedom than abstract expression about known
concepts
it is simply the roll of a dice
it's playing with perspective or totally ignoring it and building a frsh new horizon -
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see -- i see it as something much more disciplined than "simply the roll of a dice" -- i see it as a mechanical breakdown of the parts of the whole --
or sometimes i see it as seeing things through a flies eye
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discipline is an act of will
the roll is allowing it to manifest
but all you can get roling a cube reduces to six faces -
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eh -- i guess it's not hitting me --- i'm not connecting with the concept poetically.
and can't force things.
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our eyes are spheres
but our vision is a cube
our thoughts bidimensional
and somewhere there's a tief
preaching unidimensional guilt
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you should write something -- even if you don't put it in the contest.
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yes yes you're right.
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yes your right
I noticed
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