the primeval god of televised history.

so you want to write poetry huh?

 

 

 

Poetry

is that sea of orange perhaps,

a million years ago of light

 

and stone flakes. Of holes

dug until the ape fist bleeds;

 

until the jewel's fastened

to an iron belt is God and a bluer

 

heaven editrix. In my hauled

away life of printable dreamscapes

and eyedrops,

 

even in my fear of everything human,

my voodoo still overwhelms.

I

 

knock on all the wood of the house

interjectionally to ward off misfortune

 

yet it returns and keeps returning like the deer

who thought of corn and sweet potatoes

 

only to be shot. It's hide

finger-pressed. It's thigh bone

a weapon now.

 

On making love to a beast:

disreguard the grasping in the first few minutes.

 

Then begin with the idea that the hippo

laying beneath you has grazed (in extreme pain)

 

in grassy savannahs on ferns and fallen nuts.

And that this immense kinethesia,

 

this funk-machine of kinship and need

can create all the illusion of pleasures

permanence.

 

But I am greedy,

turned loose and crazy. And If only Granddad

knew

 

while farming, and when not, fishing,

with the same fat billfold of ceremonial notes

that he could not read.

 

Dollars that he could not count; and like taking the

bus ride to all points north to explore the hardcover caves /

primitive and midwestern,

 

knowing that the ghost of noisy folklore had

crawled into his grandson, like the bile

 

of a horrible liver.

Reviews

[Frontier]

Astounding, I am not sure exactly what Im reading and I love this for that.

[Dean]

You have bound our art interestingly, innovatively and well. Part of the result is refreshment I never knew, but nod my head in wonder...and assent. In each of your pieces that I have read so far, I experience an adventure in newness, in thinking, and in applause at your ability to open my eyes again. ( I never knew before that I had closed them)
Thank you!!

[Ken Simm.]

Perhaps I shouldn't but I kept getting the opening scenes of 2001 A Space Odyssey appearing in my mind whilst reading this. It was perhaps the mention of thigh bones and apes that did it. However, aside from my wanderings this ranges far and wide over a landscape of thoughts, memories and conclusions. But its tight and brilliant composition keeps it clear and finely honed. If it doesn't sound too patronising Dana, I think you skills and talent are second to none and showing themselves in every gem you produce.

[m.s.early]

And in the ancient magic there stirs a presence that sometime since the beginning latches on to a few starving and thirsting souls that know nothing else other than to create something visible because there is too much of heart to contain. In a minimalist approach they called it that name with barely two syllables... poet.

[Tree]

Loved where this poem was born, thousands, of years ago, or possibly more. Who knows when the poem emerged, sneaking its way all the way to Detroit via a little DNA, and a little time... They say the oldest cave art is found in France and Spain, anywhere between 40 and 50 thousand years ago, so, we know that expression in the form of physical art dates back at least that far; but what of poetry? I think farther. As soon as homo erectus, or hablis, or whichever more or less modern-day vocal-cord equipped semi- human could form a language, then an expression was birthed... Maybe, in the form of some type of verbal communication to describe the world around them, probably, simple stuff, I imagine.... Early speaking hominid #1 to early receptive hominid #2: "You are the Sun, the Stars. You are FIRE. Now, Come to the Cave.".... One of my favorite cave paintings is in a place called Serra da Capivara, in Brazil. The exact age of this particular art is in dispute, some say, it's 11,000 years old, others more. The one I am referring to, is called, "The Kiss." Here, two what may be teenage or adolescent figures, composed of a red finger clay /flower pigment, seem to be leaning into each-other, barely, about to touch. The angle, clearly indicates theses two figures are moving in for an innocent kiss... And I guess my point is, that I picture a romantic kid sweet/poem talking his girlfriend into that cave, to then impress her with his art... Looking back, Dana, I'm not sure how I got on to this tangent, but your insightful, and thought provoking poem, certainly brought me here....

[Horizon K.]

...even in my fear of everything human,
my voodoo still overwhelms.
I...

Poetry can be anything, I remember you saying... everything, from dreams to voodoo, to being greedy and plucking everything we see in our savannas and expressing or redressing... Here, you crawl across all spaces, like an earth adventurer, turning those discoveries into vivid words on a page. Makes me think-- what should I write about today? A deflated balloon? A can of marbles? My son, throwing bits of wood chips at the sky, and calling it rain? We are , free here, to be moved by anything... Thank you for this reminder, Dana... Of where poems can be found...

[jacob erin-cilberto]

i think there may be something to that voodoo thing...maybe we are witch doctors, not poets...
folklore...around us and within us...it all moves the pen...
but we experience that bus ride to all points of life, good and bad, in order to find our way write those ceremonial notes about the past.
and like that bile...the muse is within us...and in some ways pushes us forward towards recognition, or toward madness.

exceptional poetry, very Beat-Like in presentation and tone.

love it.

[Cory Barrett]

Good goo I feel like I have been inundated with more substance than my pathetic brain can process. This is marvelous and will take me at least a dozen more reads to digest.

[Denham Cole]

Nice work. I really like found poems these days.