(First appears in Poetry, August 1919)

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
     A bit overheated and not nearly oblique enough for our irony-saturated aughties needs, but I love the bluntforce trauma of the title and theme just fine. The subject never gets old — what do we gain and what do we lose the more we try to apply mechanistic thinking to all phenomena surrounding us? I once had a friend in high school, a gifted math and science-minded student whom I was very fond of, who expressed, with a kind of shy and giddy earnestness, his wish to discover the equations underlying all emotion. I remember instinctively recoiling from such an idea, and so went our debate.
      & I feel the same way now, decades later. Being human means having a mind with an affinity for categorization, pattern-finding, abstraction, quantification; we can, have and should continue to apply those faculties toward an increased understanding of ourselves and our external realities. But when we do this irresponsibly we a) miss out on ways of knowing the universe that are NOT just scientific-mechanistic, but which have more to do with ourselves as spiritual and artistic beings who crave real interaction between ourselves and what’s around us; and b) we run the risk of creating distance between ourselves and the things — be they birds, butterflies, or emotions — we are attempting to dissect & break down to component parts. It’s not so much that science is a “horrid voice”. I’d say it’s more that irresponsible reliance on science as our main (or, heaven forbid, only) way to perceive & process the universe can create a horrid void in us — the lonely void of looking around and merely observing creation as a set of deterministic processes instead of relating to it — to the bird, tree, butterfly, insect, fellow human — as a series of singularly beautiful manifestations of the universe. It’s not only our gift but duty to bring ourselves in cultivated states of mindfulness, gratefulness, feeling and spirit to the universe; not just as algebraists dissectors and technicians but also as caretakers, friends, singers, worshipers & rejoicers.

     (P.s., If anyone knows the exact date of this poem’s first publication [and, of course, which publication it was first featured in], please let me know — I’m trying to assign attribution as precisely as possible to each artwork I feature on this site)
 
 
 

For more on Lindsay, please check out the University of Virginia’s e-text of Lindsay’s poetry collection called The Congo and Other Poems here.

 
 

On the Beach at Night Alone
by Walt Whitman

On the beach at night alone,
As the old mother sways her to and fro, singing her husky song,
As I watch the bright stars shining, I think a thought of the clef of the universes, and of the future.

A vast similitude interlocks all,
All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets
All distances of place however wide,
All distances of time, all inanimate forms,
All souls, all living bodies, though they be ever so different, or in different worlds,
All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes, the fishes, the brutes,
All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, languages,
All identities that have existed, or may exist, on this globe, or any globe,
All lives and deaths, all of the past, present, future,
This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann’d,
And shall forever span them and compactly hold and enclose them.

“This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”

         Whitman, from the Preface to the 1855 edition of Leaves of Grass
 
 
 
 
 

                 ”Let him whose soul is no longer startled
and transformed by palaces, by gardens’ boldness, by the rising
and falling of ancient fountains, by everything held back
in paintings or by the infinite thereness of statues –
let such a person go out to his daily work, where
greatness is lying in ambush and someday, at some turn,
will leap upon him and force him to fight for his life.”

         Rilke, 1912, from a “Duino Elegies” fragment, trans. Stephen Mitchell

       (click to enlarge)

       Aurel Schmidt, Spider Eyes, 2006

SURVIVAL, 1983-1985

 
 

YOU ARE TRAPPED ON THE EARTH SO YOU WILL EXPLODE

WHAT URGE WILL SAVE US NOW THAT SEX WON’T?

PUT FOOD OUT IN THE SAME PLACE EVERY DAY AND TALK TO THE PEOPLE WHO COME TO EAT AND ORGANIZE THEM

SAVOR KINDNESS BECAUSE CRUELTY IS ALWAYS POSSIBLE LATER

DANCE ON DOWN TO THE GOVERNMENT AND TELL THEM YOU’RE EAGER TO RULE BECAUSE YOU KNOW WHAT’S GOOD FOR YOU

THE BREAKDOWN COMES WHEN YOU STOP CONTROLLING YOURSELF AND WANT THE RELEASE OF A BLOODBATH

SPIT ALL OVER SOMEONE WITH A MOUTHFUL OF MILK IF YOU WANT TO FIND OUT SOMETHING ABOUT HIS PERSONALITY FAST

MOTHERS WITH REASONS TO SOB SHOULD DO IT IN GROUPS IN PUBLIC AND WAIT FOR OFFERS

OUTER SPACE IS WHERE YOU DISCOVER WONDER AND WHERE YOU FIGHT AND NEVER HURT EARTH IF YOU STOP BELIEVING THIS YOUR MOOD TURNS UGLY

DIE FAST AND QUIET WHEN THEY INTERROGATE YOU OR LIVE SO LONG THAT THEY ARE ASHAMED TO HURT YOU ANYMORE

IF YOU HAD BEHAVED NICELY THE COMMUNISTS WOULDN’T EXIST

TRUST VISIONS THAT DON’T FEATURE BUCKETS OF BLOOD

IN A DREAM YOU SAW A WAY TO SURVIVE AND YOU WERE FULL OF JOY

IF YOU’RE CONSIDERED USELESS NO ONE WILL FEED YOU ANYMORE

WHEN YOU EXPECT FAIR PLAY YOU CREATE AN INFECTIOUS BUBBLE OF MADNESS AROUND YOU

YOU ARE SO COMPLEX THAT YOU DON’T ALWAYS RESPOND TO DANGER

MEN DON’T PROTECT YOU ANYMORE

WITH ALL THE HOLES IN YOU ALREADY THERE’S NO REASON TO DEFINE THE OUTSIDE ENVIRONMENT AS ALIEN

WHEN SOMEONE BEATS YOU WITH A FLASHLIGHT YOU MAKE LIGHT SHINE IN ALL DIRECTIONS

FINDING EXTREME PLEASURE WILL MAKE YOU A BETTER PERSON IF YOU’RE CAREFUL ABOUT WHAT THRILLS YOU

USE A STUN GUN WHEN THE PERSON COMING AT YOU HAS A GOOD EXCUSE

IT IS IN YOUR SELF-INTEREST TO FIND A WAY TO BE VERY TENDER

THE BEGINNING OF THE WAR WILL BE SECRET

THE CONVERSATION ALWAYS TURNS TO LIVING LONG ENOUGH TO HAVE FUN

WHAT COUNTRY SHOULD YOU ADOPT IF YOU HATE POOR PEOPLE?

USE WHAT IS DOMINANT IN A CULTURE TO CHANGE IT QUICKLY

PROTECT ME FROM WHAT I WANT

YOU ARE CAUGHT THINKING ABOUT KILLING ANYONE YOU WANT

IT’S HARD TO KNOW IF YOU’RE CRAZY IF YOU FEEL YOU’RE IN DANGER ALL THE TIME NOW

YOU CAN’T REACH THE PEOPLE WHO CAN KILL YOU ANY TIME SO YOU HAVE TO GO HOME AND THINK ABOUT WHAT TO DO

THE FUTURE IS STUPID

HIDE UNDER WATER OR ANYWHERE SO UNDISTURBED YOU FEEL THE JERK OF PLEASURE WHEN AN IDEA COMES

SOMEONE ELSE’S BODY IS A PLACE FOR YOUR MIND TO GO

WHEN THERE’S NO SAFE PLACE TO SLEEP YOU’RE TIRED FROM WALKING ALL DAY AND EXHAUSTED FROM THE NIGHT BECAUSE IT’S TWICE AS DANGEROUS THEN

IT’S EASY TO GET MILLIONS OF PEOPLE ON EVERY CONTINENT TO PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO EATING AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITY

GO WHERE PEOPLE SLEEP AND SEE IF THEY’RE SAFE

HANDS ON YOUR BREAST CAN KEEP YOUR HEART BEATING

TURN SOFT AND LOVELY ANY TIME YOU HAVE A CHANCE

IT IS FUN TO WALK CARELESSLY IN A DEATH ZONE

YOU LIVE THE SURPRISE RESULTS OF OLD PLANS

LET YOUR HAND WANDER ON THE FLESH TO MAKE POSSIBILITY MULTIPLY

IT IS EMBARRASSING TO BE CAUGHT AND KILLED FOR STUPID REASONS

SHOOT INTO INFINITE SPACE TO HIT A TARGET IN TIME AND CALL IT INEVITABLE

YOU HOVER NEAR LOVELY UNCONSCIOUS LIFE-FORMS THAT OFFER NO IMMEDIATE RESISTANCE

PEOPLE LOOK LIKE THEY ARE DANCING BEFORE THEY LOVE

BODIES LIE IN THE BRIGHT GRASS AND SOME ARE MURDERED AND SOME ARE PICNICKING

SILLY HOLES IN PEOPLE ARE FOR BREEDING OR ARE FROM SHOOTING

YOUR MODERN FACE SCANS THE SURPRISE ENDING

 

 

 
– Jenny Holzer

 

 

 
Scairt? Confused? Set yr face to glowy grin. & let the night rush in.

 

 

 
                           Holzer Source: mosssleeper.tumblr.com

                           More of Holzer at jennyholzer.com

                           More of Schmidt’s art over at Saatchi Gallery and fecalface.com

 

 

 
 
    I’ve been using the “Art of the Day” template to cover visual arts mostly, but it’s been my aim for some time to open this up to all forms of human creativity, highbrow, lowbrow, eternal, ephemeral, edible, forgettable, video games, macramé. Whatever happens to slingshot an acorn upside my head that particular day. Unfortunately, I haven’t much followed up on that promise to myself — I’m just so damn used to babbling on about a great painting or sculpture that I (mostly) haven’t let myself try other things. Trying to change that with my first Art of the Day on something texty: in specific, this jawdropful bit that I came across in the March 2011 issue of Harper’s:
 
“Asked by M. if I fear death. No, I don’t. He who doesn’t desire anything can let it all go. My hopes of being a little old bald tubby man with money enough to eat oysters every day are shot. There is all this pewter-colored hair that sits like a cap on my skull, and I cannot afford oysters. Eyesight fading, I’m as nearsighted as a sturgeon fumbling along the bottom with its whiskers. I have heard no laughter in years. Certainly none of my own. Now my dream is to have nothing whatever to do and make love to a fat girl.”
 
    The author? Richard Selzer who, according to Harper’s, is a “former surgeon and professor of surgery at the Yale School of Medicine”. The piece speaks for itself and I’m embarrassed to appendage it with commentary but, well, that’s the point of this damn site right now, so on to it.
    The brutal candor of it all kills me. The Prufrockian resignation too. And how that death’s-door apathy is offset by such choice & unforgettable sensory details, the unmistakable evidence of someone who is still richly involved with life, who is still in it despite the buddhist undesirous flatline: the little ol’ tubster waddling around slurping hama hamas from the shell, beaming; the pewter bowlcut; the haunting spectacle of the slow oceanfloor-grubbing sturgeon; the obliging fat girl sighing into his embrace. That’s what kills me — I mean, the bleak economy of the man’s insight into his condition, desires, and mortality would have been enough, but then you combine that with this heartbreaking sliver of remaining tether to the world — his many-times reduced aspiration to do nothing but loaf & love a fat girl — and I just shake my head in disbelief. Astonishing prose.
 
 
 
 
 Please head over to Richard Selzer’s NYS Writers Institute bio page here for more about the author.

 
Thanks also to Optic Nerve for saving me the trouble of typing out the Melzer text from my copy of Harper’s. Check out Optic Nerve, great site.
 
 
All writing unless where noted © copyright C. Way / Snailcrow.com 2011

       Paul Wans, Eber, 1987, watercolor
 
 
 
    

Pigs
 Les Murray
 
 
Us all on sore cement was we.
Not warmed then with glares. Not glutting mush
under that pole the lightning’s tied to.
No farrow-shit in milk to make us randy.
Us back in cool god-shit. We ate crisp.
We nosed up good rank in the tunnelled bush.
Us all fuckers then. And Big, huh? Tusked
the balls-biting dog and gutsed him wet.
Us shoved down the soft cement of rivers.
Us snored the earth hollow, filled farrow, grunted.
Never stopped growing. We sloughed, we soughed
and balked no weird till the high ridgebacks was us
with weight-buried hooves.  Or bristly, with milk.
Us never knowed like slitting nor hose-biff then.
Nor the terrible sheet-cutting screams up ahead.
The burnt water kicking.  This gone-already feeling
here in no place with our heads on upside down.


 
from
Translations from the Natural World, 1992

 
 
 
More of Wans’ art over at wanskunst.de.

More of Les Murray’s poetry at lesmuray.org.