Everything is a
struggle, these
days.

Xcue-sets, encore

get / thee behind / me, Arthur Rimbaud

A photo from a reading at Auckland University, March 31.

His
future was
fast becoming finite.

Before Gil Scott-Heron

wrote & sang a song called "Winter in America", an Australian singer/ songwriter called Doug Ashdown had also written & recorded a song called "Winter in America".



It still occupies a prominent place on my emotional jukebox.

some takes on Genji Monogatari

Thomas Fink at Galatea Resurrects #14

Eileen Tabios, also at Galatea Resurrects #14

Bill Allegrezza at p-ramblings

Paul Siegell at goodreads

Sheila Murphy at Jacket

Lulu URL

Amazon URL

intertwine

She chose the
double bass
as

the
invisible part
of herself. Now,

her intimate, low
register, haunting
songs

that
emphasize the
androgyny of emotion

are recognized as
a personal
trademark.

Now out from Otoliths — Crag Hill's 7 x 7

It's pure serendipity that the 49^th book to bear the Otoliths imprint just happens to have the title that it does.....

7 x 7
Crag Hill
56 pages,
Page size 8½" x 8½"
Cover image by Nico Vassilakis
Otoliths 2010
ISBN: 978-0-9806025-7-9
$13.45 + p&h
URL: http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/7-x-7/10899413

Implicitly comparing a book to a deck of cards, and that deck of cards in turn to the world of social violence we’re dealt, Crag Hill stakes his ante on the power of poetry to witness and document the multiply-layered, self-inflicted insanity of US daily life in the Bush years. As readers we become participants and are thus empowered to say no to the game of death. —Maria Damon

One of the most important things I look for in poetry is something I can believe—something without posturing or postmodern cynicism or post-anything for that matter: something that stands outside of facile labels, something (disorientingly/ seemingly) simple that makes me see and hear and feel—and more importantly, makes me believe—in the world, in poetry, in the process of poesis. Crag Hill’s poems make me believe and listen—and more importantly—make me want to listen. And best of all, they are far from simple and believe in a chance-laden process. They make our world. These are poems fiercely engaged with/in our current and tragic socio/ political/ecological moment and I am deeply grateful for them, because gratitude is the beginning of understanding. These poems remind me that rage and discontent is the genesis of change, that "death is death"—such a necessary reminder in times of such alienation from it. Let us now go make and change, listening to this poet’s example. —Christopher Arigo

"Scattered parts/now lie about what happened." 7 X 7 parses the dizzying bomb crater sized duplicities of the thoroughly mediated, mediatized and militarized zeitgeist which we have collectively dealt ourselves into. Crag Hill is looking to see where the proverbial chips are falling. And he's playing with a full deck. —Tom Beckett

Sometimes
the question
is a tur(n)key.

Sometimes
the answer
is cranberry sauce.

channeling Eco

The speaker was a monk bent under the weight of his years, an old man white as snow, not only his skin, but also his face and his pupils. I saw he was blind. The voice was still majestic and the limbs powerful, even if the body was withered by age. He stared at us as if he could see us, and always thereafter I saw him move and speak as if he still possessed the gift of sight. But the tone of his voice was that of one possessing only the gift of prophesy.

"The man whom you see, venerable in age and wisdom," Malachi said to William, pointing out the newcomer, "is Jorge of Burgos."

from William Weaver's translation of Il nome della rosa.

sleep deprivation

IЖon

Late Spring. The ghosts of the Tsars have melted away everywhere except inside the churches.

Soon he will be totally alone on Nevsky Prospekt.

The aesthetic possibilities of Tokyo

                         The architecture was 
          once spectacular; now
                   sounds terrifically 
                       Johnny Cash. New 
                media & social soft-
           ware are catalysts for 
                atmospheric change. 
                      No point being a 
           pedant when innocuous 
                         classicism & memorable 
                kitsch are both written 
         on the verso of a papyrus
            & promoted as a cure 
                for writer's block by 

           the person who loved 
                        Tzara because she was 
                  destined to love a poet.

a 2004 collab. with Jukka-Pekka Kervinen

The Temptation of St Anthony

Every five days
young boys would 
make the four-hour
journey to bring him 
food — locusts &
honey, a skin of water,
occasionally a small block 
of goats’-milk cheese 
wrapped in a palmleaf. On the 
days in between
he would be offered
wine & fruit, a choice of
lamb or venison, sherbet
to refresh the mouth.

*

                    The demons
               come down
          the steps
     in a line
towards 
him. Dressed in 
the uniform of 
the Army of the 
Tsar. Fixed
bayonets. He is
transfixed by
the one third
from the right, blond
hair gleaming in
the uninterrupted
starlight. Offers
himself up as
sacrifice, expends
his semen as he
is entered. His last
sighting is of scorpions
flowing from an
old woman’s eye. The
demons
     go down
          the steps
               in a line
                    away from him.

*

He thinks

tranquility is a sea of torment
the mountains are moving away
he can hear the sea
s  or er    og horn        use    e t
he is taking milk from his mother’s breast
the stars are the eyes of succubi 
     waiting for him to fall asleep
of living as a lacuna in life
ived   ro in   ter          ium  nd d
lost opportunities
a koan is a trick question whose answer 
     can only be found in the mouths of wild dogs
perhaps a pillar would have been more preferable
p  obj     s a s q   ue nap n abo
how when an apple is dropped whilst someone is watching 
     there is an instant when it is poised precisely 
     in front of the face
end r   a in   bo   s o p ds    b
demons are often real people when Christ is far away
  on n           faith enter   en            p
his plate is full of emptiness
if there was a city here it would be in flames
he is being dropped like an apple
         e  a  er hymn p  k       urts  
         p rt  d  a   "re  rn"  o  t  wa
        ived  ro in  ter       ium  nd d
torment is a sea of tranquility

he dreams.

*
 
He had left
instructions 
that he was to 
be buried in a
secret location
so his body could not
be venerated. On
being told of his
death by the young
food-bearers the
elders came to find
that wild dogs had
torn apart & taken 
his body away,
tempted by
the rotting flesh.

from poles apart by Mark Young & Jukka-Pekka Kervinen

every so often,

a bit of Bosch is what the brain needs....


center panel, The Temptation of St Anthony

ca♪ence

from The Light-Breaker

History is. Typhoon.
The Bay of Bengal.

Ship washed up. Large.
Left there. Broken down

by locals. Scrap, metal,
parts to use. Such

plenitude never seen
before. New industry.

Now stretches for many
kilometers along the

beaches of Bangladesh.
Pollution prevails. Most

things done by hand or
not much more advanced.

Small men or children
in narrow passageways.

What air there is is
full of toxins. Is death.

Is dangerous. Is life.
Is nothing else to do.

The countryside destroyed.

I just love this photo

of Michael Rothenberg & David Meltzer by Terri Carrión that graces the cover of the latest Otoliths.

Otoliths #17 is now live

Issue #17 of Otoliths, the southern autumn, 2010 issue, has just gone live. Four years old today!

&, since it's also May Day, I was going to have Billy Bragg singing "The Internationale" as background—you can still have it: just click on the link—but there's enough in this issue to allow an unaccompanied announcement. As befits a 4th birthday issue, it's a bit more packed than normal. In addition to the usual broad selection of paintings, prose, photographs, sermons, assemblages, poetry of all shapes, sizes, & styles, &, as always, a large offering of vizpo, the issue also includes two special features; one of which, since it was to have been a complete issue of another journal which has, unfortunately, gone into hiatus, is actually magazine-sized.

In the standard part of the issue you'll find work by Michael Farrell, Marilyn R. Rosenberg , Eric Arnold, Jim McCrary, Reed Altemus, Adam Fieled, Bob Heman, Tim Wright, Samit Roy, Caleb Puckett, Charles Freeland, gustave morin, dan raphael, Philip Byron Oakes, Dorothee Lang & Karyn Eisler & Susan Gibb, Sam Langer, Geof Huth, Esa Mäkijärvi, Scott Metz, Andrew McEwan, Felino Soriano, Travis Macdonald, Paul Siegell, Alan Davies, Kirsten Kaschock, Raymond Farr, John M. Bennett, John M. Bennett & Sheila E. Murphy, Jeff Harrison, Letitia Trent, Michelle Cahill, Valery Oisteanu, Irving Weiss, Martin Edmond, Carlos Soto Román, Jim Meirose, SJ Fowler, Felipe Cussen, Grzegorz Wróblewski, James Mc Laughlin, Michael Steven, Arkava Das, Michael Caylo-Baradi, J. D. Nelson, Jal Nicholl, Jenny Enochsson, Joe Balaz, Glenn R. Frantz, Michael Brandonisio, Jon Curley & Gg Re, sean burn, Bobbi Lurie, Jeff Klooger, Richard Kostelanetz, Silvio De Gracia, David-Baptiste Chirot, Alexander Jorgensen, Anne Gorrick, John Moore Williams, Marcia Arrieta, Mara Patricia Hernandez, Bill Drennan, nick-e melville, Corey Wakeling, John Martone, Jessie Janeshek, Thomas Fink (reviewing David Lehman's Yeshiva Boys), & Emma Smith.

The first special feature is ROCKPILE on the road, with poems by Michael Rothenberg & David Meltzer, photos by Terri Carrión, & an introduction by Larry Sawyer.

The second special feature is Poet-Editors, curated & introduced by Eileen R. Tabios. 43 poet-editors respond to the question: "What is (or has been) your favorite editing project and why?" The respondees, who also provide—sometimes quite extensive—samples of their work, are: William Allegrezza, Ivy Alvarez, Anny Ballardini, Joi Barrios, John Bloomberg-Rissman, Ana Božičević, Garrett Caples, Brian Clements, Bruce Covey, Del Ray Cross, Patrick James Dunagan, Elaine Equi, Adam Fieled, Thomas Fink, Luis H. Francia, Geoffrey Gatza, Tim Gaze, Crg Hill, Aileen Ibardaloza, Vincent Katz, Jukka-Pekka Kervinen, Burt Kimmelman, Mark Lamoureux, Amanda Laughtland, Timothy Liu, Dana Teen Lomax, Joey Madia, Sandy McIntosh, Didi Menendez, Lars Palm, Guillermo Parra, Ernesto Priego, Sam Rasnake, Barbara Jane Reyes, Christopher Rizzo, Patrick Rosal, Sarah Rosenthal, Susan M. Schultz, Logan Ryan Smith, Jill Stengel, Fiona Sze-Lorrain, Jean Vengua, & Mark Young.

& if that isn't enough, the print parts of the previous issue of Otoliths, the southern summer 2010 issue, are now available from The Otoliths Storefront.