My work life began to intrude on the writing of April, so much so that while I worked on pieces, I didn't post them. So I'm reaching back to my cut-ups project and, looking at it from this distance, enjoying it. The words here are from the desktop encyclopedia, pages 580-581, fin whale to Fisher (as in chess player Bobby).
I was at the L.A. Times Festival of Books on the USC campus yesterday for poems by Chase Twichell and some unexpectedly fascinating work by Daniel Tiffany, a USC prof, who read from Dandelion Clock and other books. Most interesting were those Dandelion Clock pieces which begin with lines from Old English and spin out sound- or sense-related paths from there. No doubt it was that listening that brought me back to my own experiments. Also heard Patti Smith and Dave Eggers talk about the passion that is art, whatever one's art may be. The two of them are generous souls, so inspiring, so spacious.
Our task
Devotees may wait years for the beauty of open craters or the sparks of luminous beetles. Those who lack faith have other means of escape: Rockets of colored salt, a rubber carriage, exclusive molecular structures. A godlessness large enough to spread thinly over the 13 level realms will be allowed to exit the next without injury, or enter the private network of innocence without ordeal. Purification tends to cause a severe sting, conspicuous circular scars. Do not recoil from salvation marked with orange or yellow. Common fields and ash may lie outside human control, awaiting the pollen and nectar of mating, elongated sandspit as nest, wild magenta scrub as body. The air flashes, clearing forests, seed and fire synthesizing each other. Leaves fall. Time will burn our private egress, our dormant fireseed. Watch for light-producing signals, for warmth. Eat.
Photo, of fireworks seen aslant, by Peter Harding via Flickr.
