I bought a dish-mop—
having no daughter—
for they had twisted
fine ribbons of shining copper
about white twine
and made a towsled head
of it, fastened it
upon a turned ash stick
slender at the neck,
straight, tall—
when tied upright
on the brass wall-bracket
to be a light for me—
and naked,
as a girl should seem
to her father.
Lookin’ fly
http://noah-cicero.blogspot.com/
Obituary
Noah Cicero got a check
for 130 dollars
instead of buying food
he purchased cigarettes
and starved to death
Fortune
I once had dreams
of being a great man
now I dream
of fixing the fuel pump
on my car
The present
I’m overwhelmed by the present
some poets are overwhelmed
by boats
and juniper trees
but right now
I don’t wanna talk about it
In the postcards that he sent from the way stations he would describe with shouts the instantaneous images that he had seen from the window of his coach, and it was as if he were tearing up and throwing into oblivion some long, evanescent poem: the chimerical Negroes in the cotton fields of Louisiana, the winged horses in the bluegrass of Kentucky, the Greek lovers in the infernal sunsets of Arizona, the girl in the red sweater painting watercolors by a lake in Michigan who waved at him with her brushes, not to say farewell but out of hope, because she did not know that she was watching a train with no return passing by.Gabriel Garcia Marquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude
Altjeringa, Australia: so much of this continent uninhabitable, and yet life goes on just like anywhere else.
FULL OF LIFE NOW
Full of life now, compact, visible,
I, forty years old the eighty-third year of the States,
To one a century hence or any number of centuries hence,
To you yet unborn these, seeking you.
When you read these I that was visible become invisible,
Now it is you, compact, visible, realizing my poems, seeking me,
Fancying how happy you were if I could be with you and become your comrade;
Be it as if I were with you. (Be not too certain but I am now with you.)
-Walt Whitman
There is something incredible about this. This is the purpose of writing, what Shakespeare kept reminding us of in his sonnets: the transmission of emotion, of something inexorably human, over ink and paper and words, over lifetimes.
King of Clay
BATTLE OF THE SURFACES
In May 2007, a bizarre tennis match in Mallorca pitted the skills of Roger “King of Grass” Federer against Rafael “King of Clay” Nadal. For c. 2 1/2 hours, Federer (Wimbledon champion for 4 consecutive years, with an unbeaten run of 48 wins on grass) fought Nadal (French Open champion, with 72 straight wins on clay), on a half-grass, half-clay court specially constructed at a cost of $1.63mil (for this one-off match). Nadal eventually emerged victorious with a winning score of 7-5, 4-6, 7-6 (12-10).
Schott’s Miscellany 2009
