Jon Gibson ~

 

J O N     G I B S O N

RE-READING HENRI MICHAUX'S ECUADOR ~

Henri Michaux by Claude Cahun – Paris, France, 1925

I have in me a strong propensity to intoxication. I am a man
obsessed, and everything is my meat, Thus, when I read, the first
pages hold no interest for me. They are too straightforward. But
after a few hours it all gets fluid, and then find a real pleasure.

The trees here are well lit up and luminous. I do not see them,
I only see their glow. My eyes are always wide open like a baby's,
and like a baby I only turn them when something shifts in front
of me.

I cannot very well explain myself. While it is true that I speak
more often about what bothers me, I also have my share of little
delights.





~





The bottom of the Amazon like the current is constantly shifting.
You can sometimes remain aground for three or four weeks. The
more you push the deeper in you get.






~






                                Manus (38 degrees C. heat) Brazil

All along the right bank of the river for about a mile an
enormous, very high wall. Behind and above it — Manaus.

This town of 100,000 is 1,200 miles from everything, and any
road you take, at the end of it there is just the jungle.

The local people regard their town as a heap of rubble. Yet
indications of wealth are everywhere — a Big City theater as well
as some new monuments. In a small neighborhood theater as well
as some new monuments. In a small neighborhood theater you
read, 'Here in 1911 Pavolva danced.' The pound sterling was
then small change, but the rubber prices fell and now there are
only memories.






~





To tell the truth, at Iquitos I was already beginning to have
my fill. I'd have liked to go unobserved; to make myself very
small and arrive in Paris where I could hide myself in my books.

But soon I would wake up with still all Brazil to be crossed.

Which is one reason why this looks like the twentieth time I've
been on this one trip.

And it's becoming one tedious. . .






~





The Amazon isn't like the Napo

The Napo swims slowly toward the Amazon

Slowly.

Home again.

Worn out.

Above it there blows an unquestionable wind.

Oh! the wind!

I'm from a country of wind

In my country even the poorest has his wind

The air is never harvested, it puffs, that's wind,

We always have a lot, and we need it — wind!  wind!



The man who has grown up

Who has spent years in the passionate hand of the wind



I'd no idea I was this attached to my country

But this wind. . .

The wind. . .






~

Tattoo Marks


The jungle Indians do not, in the strict sense, tattoo themselves.
That is, they do not make deep incisions in their skins.

They may make a design on their faces to go have lunch at a
friend's, then rub it out on the way home. Everyone has mentioned
how attractive this is. There are certain colors, however,
that smudge badly. For us they would be an inconvenience. The
Turks were quite right to have pointed out how unseemly a face is.
There it is on top of your clothing, sticking out, with glances
escaping from it like madmen. Everything unhealthy and bestial
that your skin has about it vanishes with the application of a
line, a spot of rouge. Your face becomes not so much intelligent
as intellectual, it becomes witty. That calms. It was always my
feeling when my Indians had tattooed themselves that now we
would be able to talk (the exception being the case where the
design confines itself to a stupid exaggeration of the facial contours
and their one or two basic elements).

It does not take much of a prophet to predict that before long
the white race will on its own take up tattooing. I am told that
current opinion is flatly opposed to this — and much else. Prophets
say, 'You'll see'; that suffices for both them and me.

I only add that tattooing, like all ornamentation, can both
bring out a surface and even readily make the same surface
disappear, just as a tapestry makes the whole length of a wall
disappear. Well, now is the time to have the face disappear. It is
truly impossible with a face to have a modest look — provided
that it has not been specially arranged for that.



HM
1927-1928


______________________________
E C U A D O R
Henri Michaux
translated by Robin Magowan
University of Washington Press 1970






Lordy, Michaux on any subject and anywhere
any time, any place, and here I become surprised to see
it was all translated by a friend, Robin Magowan, ever thoughtful
as his own poems. My book note says I read this book first in 1970.

[ BA ]

POETS WHO SLEEP #21 ~

P O E T S     W H O     S L E E P

______________________

                                           drawn & scribed by Bob Arnold

 

all drawings

copyright

Bob Arnold

The complete series to date ~ please link here

RE-READING TSERING WANGMO DHOMPA ~

 

The year of parting

This moment of silence, plucking lice from each other's head to drop

into wet grass. The latitudes of intimacy.

Shadows under patches of early lavender in this summer breeze.

Reiterations of a solitary thought found in a walk. Blowing breath with

a breath, bamboo growth stalking the wind. Meeting wind with its

rustle, meeting wind with fingers trembling with utter foolishness.

Do not ask to stay when dust slides off feet poised for flight.

Bewildered between water and sky, only a slippery prostration.

Spaces circling amiably, lobe cupping lobe in a ceremony. Shrugging off

the present in an attempt to live in the present. Separating ear from ear.

As cotton padded feet meet parting curtains.

When you leave, I will grab that hour of parting.

Kiss our feet. Straighten your toes.

________________________________________

Tsering Wangmo Dhompa

RECURRING GESTURES

Tangram 2000

such a beautifully balanced poem

RE-READING EDMUND TESKE ~

 

"Published to coincide with an exhibition at the Getty Museum,

Spirit into Matter is the first full-length study of

Edmund Teske (1911-1996), one of the

alchemists of 20th century American photography.

Working in obscurity, over a sixty-year period

Teske created a richly diverse body of work that explored 

the expressive and emotional potentials of the medium. 

His drive to experiment with alternative techniques

such as solarization and composite printing,

liberated a younger generation of American photographers

seeking to break away from established darkroom procedures.

At the same time his subject matter—sometimes abstract, often frankly 

homoerotic, always lyrical and poetic—opened up

new areas for younger photographers to explore."

Getty Museum

2004

RE-READING WANG WEI ~

Living in the Hills




In calm loneliness I shut my door

Against the whole afterglowing sky

Cranes are nesting in all the pines

No visitors at my wicket gate

Tender bamboos with the new bloom on them

Red lotuses shed of ther old garments

A lamp shines out at the ford

Water-chestnut pickers come home.







Drifting on the Lake



The autumn sky is clear into the distance

The clearer so far from human habitation

On a sandy shore a crane, or beyond clouds

A mountain top makes my content

The limpid ripples calm and evening comes

The moon shines out and I relax

Tonight my single oar takes over

As I drift without thought of going back.







Return to Mount Sung



The river ran clear between luxuriant banks

And my carriage jogged along on its way

And the water seemed to flow with a purpose

And in the evening the birds went back together—

Desolate town confronting an old ford

Setting sun filling the autumn hills

After a long journey, sat the foot of Mount Sung

I have come home and shut my door.






Written in my Country Garden in Spring



On my roof spring pigeons call

And round the village almond trees bloom white

Men take axes to cut the high branches

Shoulder hoes to inspect the conduits

Returning swallows know their old nests

The old resident scans the new calendar

About to drink I suddenly hold my hand

With a pang for a friend on a far journey



____________________
Wang Wei (A.D. 699-761)
Poems
translated by G.W. Robinson
Penguin 1973






I'm always reading Wang Wei

RE-READING KO UN ~

Afterlife




I won't come back as a human.

Ever.



For the afterlife,

an animal will do.

Not a big one;

small will do.

Even

so small it can hardly be seen.

An amoeba will do.



I didn't want that a few years ago.

I could have been reborn

not a man but

an ignorant woman who had lost a few

of her eleven children.

Shoe would do.



But I won't be born as a human being ever again.




____________________

Ko Un
The Three Way Tavern
Selected Poems
translated by Clare You & Richard Silberg
University of California Press 2006





You can read lots and lots of Ko Un, that good.
But I picked out one pumpkin from the patch.

POETS WHO SLEEP #20 ~

P O E T S     W H O     S L E E P

______________________

                                           drawn & scribed by Bob Arnold

all drawings

copyright

Bob Arnold


The complete series to date ~ please link here

GREAT SET ( JACK WHITE ) ~

 

One more three piece dynamo

Dedicated to Eddie Van Halen

ALAN LAU ~

 

A L A N    L A U

Artist, writer, and community organizer Alan Lau grew up in Paradise, California. In his first book, The Buddha Bandits Down Highway 99, Lau recalls early memories of his grandmother teaching him calligraphy in her kitchen – his first experience with the brush. After earning his BA in Art from the University of California – Santa Cruz in 1976, Lau traveled to Japan where he studied sumi-e and brush painting. After settling in Seattle, Lau developed a visual style inspired by the traditional brush painting techniques, but unfettered by strict tradition.

_________________________

ArtXchange Gallery, Seattle

RE-READING JAMES KOLLER ~

 

Snow on Mount Saint Helena

the mountain behind me, I drove south & west

passed three Angels in Valley Ford

five more & a girl at the crossroads to Tomales

& four gassed up at Point Reyes Station, roared away

chrome & hair catching sunlight, to the north

to join the others

Billy & Toby were off, again

to Oregon, as per

I Ching, The Book of Chnges

going thru changes

like music

harmoniously, minor discords

like she burned or threw away everything, always

burns her bridges

pulled the old light out of the ceiling

tore the wires loose, all connections

change gears

Angels at every turn

all crossed roads

both sides, the streets lined with Harleys, choppers

of every description

         he opened her coat

         & held it open

         carefully & with expert eye

         examined

         what she had to offer

         so to speak, as it were

                                             a whole world

& nothing ever dies, it's all here

on every road, behind every tree

growing out of the ground, a beautiful

fire, flames

                          I'm grinning

exhaust, carbon

                           diamonds & threads

my mind is filled with diamonds & threads

we go off in all directions, thru intersections & crossed roads

a necklace to live in

_________________________

JAMES KOLLER

POEMS for the BLUE SKY

Black Sparrow Press, 1976

___________________________________

A gorgeous book of poems, if you can find

yourself a copy, spanning the wealth of one decade —

the 1960s, which Koller had a vivid and active eye to.

Along with poems that come from the vanished, are the

poets versions of songs of the Tlinget and the

Teton Sioux, working after John R. Swanton

and Frances Densmore. One of Koller's

loveliest poems is also here, "Wind"

which reads the best in the context of all the book.

Less than 100 pages and every page a gem.

I BUILD WITH AN AXE

[BA]

photograph of James Koller

by Alo Zanetta