I watched “Midnight” from Doctor Who and boy did that unnerve me. I’m not scared, but unnerved. That’s the only word I can think of.
And then I read Goblin Market by Christina Rosetti. Now I’m continuing in the vein of strange, somewhat creepy poetry. And I love it.

We must not look at Goblin men
We must not buy their fruit
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?
- Goblin Market, Christina Rosetti

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
- The Hollow Men, T.S. Elliot

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
- The Hollow Men, T.S. Elliot

Life is but life, and death but death!
Bliss is but bliss, and breath but breath!
And if, indeed, I fail,
At least to know the worst is sweet.
Defeat means nothing but defeat,
No drearier can prevail!
-Rouge Gagne, Emily Dickinson

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the achin,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.
- Emily Dickinson

I have been contacted by someone who is possibly (for the sake of anonymity, sort of) a member of the antioch community and may or may not be an editor of the online lit journal poemeleon (which is generally pretty good in my minimal experience with the journal).

This person said that, judging by the content of this blog, I am obviously crazy.

This person also said that I will regret quitting antioch.

I’m not so concerned with this persons statements regarding antioch, I am worried though, that I might be going / have gone completely nuts.

My friend — who has shared with me that she is also crazy — told me I’m no crazier than she is.

What is sanity though? This is probably cliche as of recently. “No one is really normal.” etc…

however, I’m curious. Do you think I am more crazy than you are, reader? Why am I more crazy than you are? What have I done to make me crazy?

My girlfriend, I dont think, is crazy. Though, one might consider her crazy because she continues to live with me. So she is either crazy or very strong-willed, saintly, etc…

My mother is crazy. She once threw a lazy-boy easy chair at my father. My father is crazy because he married my mother.

My brother isn’t crazy. My friend Jessica Dutschman is crazy. (See the sweet picture currently the first post on her tumblr). Craig Arnold is crazy, given the way in which he probably died. I’ve spoken with Dean Young and read a good deal of his poems, he’s probably crazy. Vivian Eliot (TS Eliot’s wife) wasn’t crazy, but eliot put her in an asylum because she wouldnt fuck him enough or something.

There are lots of other crazy people out there. There’s lots of sane people too. Maybe I’ll make a couple of lists.

“I’m scared, Mom and Dad,” exclaims Eli, our four year old, who’s standing on the landing outside his room well after his bedtime. “I’m scared of the monsters.”

Sometimes Sally looks in on him, but tonight I’m the one to amble up the stairs from the living room. As I tuck him back into bed, I assure him he’s safe and remind him that his mom and dad are here in the house. I leave the dogs to comfort the boy and walk back to the living room.

I don’t mention monsters when I talk to Eli. Perhaps I should. Perhaps I should console him by explaining that monsters aren’t real, that they don’t exist.

But that wouldn’t be honest.

The truth is I believe in monsters. And I believe in the Bogeyman.

I keep thinking about Kimberly Saenz. You know about her, I’m sure, the nurse in Lufkin who injected bleach into her dialysis patients, burning them from the inside out, telling jokes as she ignited her patients all along their veins.

No doubt, you know about lots of other monsters, too.

And if you’re honest to the bone, you know that they’re not just out there. They’re in here, in our thoughts and dreams; in our monsterous urges to be cruel, ruthless, and violent; in that savage hiss that instructs us to leap from the ledge.

But how do you tell a four year old and his little brother that the Bogeyman lurks in the park and at the church and on the computer? How do you explain that an invisible beast hides in their heads?

You don’t, I suspect.

You warn about stranger danger. You remind your kids to be smart in the streets. You teach them to fight when they have to fight.

But you don’t mention the shapes without form, the hollow center in the stuff of us. You don’t tell them about the Bogeyman, slouching in the woods, lean, empty, waiting. And you don’t tell them that one day, the Bogeyman will come. One day he’ll come for us all.

An hour after putting Eli back to bed, I make my way up the stairs to check on him. Asleep in his Power Ranger pajamas, the boy spoons with his favorite blanket, blameless and perfect.

Gazing at this fragile child who is part Sally, part me, and all himself, I’m flooded by emotion. I want to linger in this instant, to hold on to this feeling that’s as profound and inscrutable as a river, to always remember this blond-haired boy sleeping in his bed.

And then my mind drifts, and I think about Eli going to kindergarten in the fall, about the hard years ahead for him, about the Bogeyman skulking in the shadows. And standing there in his room with the Matchbox cars scattered on the carpet and the dogs sacked out on floor, my heart starts beating fast and strong, and I clinch my fists.

Thugs. Pedophiles. Monsters. I’ll gut you if you hurt my sleeping boys, I promise to myself. I’ll paint my face red and stab you right in the throat.

I bend down next to Eli to pull the covers up, and I consider murmuring something about protecting him from the monsters.

Instead, as I often do, I whisper, “Sweet dreams, Little Dude. Your Mom and Dad love you. Your Mom and Dad love you very much.”

A fragment of a poem repeats in my head.

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow

I close Eli’s window to keep the night out.

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

I shuffle down the hall to go to sleep.

“Things do not change; we change”

–Thoreau

“Every moment is a fresh beginning”

–T.S. Eliot

Cover photographs are from Amazon website

 Growltiger’s Last Stand by T.S. Elliot, From Old Tiger’s Book of Practical Cats

Growltiger was a Bravo Cat, who travelled on a barge:
In fact he was the roughtest cat that ever roamed at large.
From Gravesend up to Oxford he pursued his evil aims,
Rejoicing in his title of `The Terror of the Thames’.

His manners and appearance did not calculate to please;
His coat was torn and seedz, he was baggy at the knees;
One ear was somewhat missing, no need to tell you why,
And he scowled upon a hostile world from one forbidding eye.

The cottagers of Rotherhithe knewsomething of his fame;
At Hammersmith and Putney people shuddered at his name.
They would fortity the hen-house, lock up the silly goose,
When the rumour ran along the shore: GROWLTIGER’S ON THE LOOSE!

Woe to the weak canary, that fluttered from its cage;
Woe to the pampered Pekinese, that faced Growltiger’s rage;
Woe to the bristly Bandicoot, that lurks on foreign ships,
And woe to any Cat with whom Growltiger came to grips!

But most to Cats of foreign race his hatred had been vowed;
To Cats of foreign name and race no quarter was allowed.
The Persian and the Siamese regarded him with fear -
Because it was a Siamese had maulted his missing ear.

Now on a peaceful summer night, all nature seemed at play,
The tender moon was shining bright, the barge at Molesey lay.
All in the balmy moonlight it lay rocking on the tide -
And Growltiger was disposed to show his sentimental side.

His bucko mate, GRUMBUSKIN, long since had disappeared,
For to the Bell at Hampton he had gone to wet his beard;
And his bosun, TUMBLEBRUTUS, he too had stol’n away -
In the yard behind the Lion he was prowling for his prey.

In the forepeak of the vessel Growltiger sate alone,
Concentrating his attention on the Lady GRIDDLEBONE.
And his raffish crew were sleeping in their barrels and their bunks -
As the Siamese came creeping in their sampans and their junks.

Growltiger hd no eye for aught but Griddlebone,
And the Lady seemed enraptured by his manly baritone,
Disposed to relaxation, and awaiting no surprise -
But the moonlight shone reflected from a hundred bright blue eyes.

And closer still and closer the sampans circled round,
And yet from all the enemy there was not heard a sound.
The lovers sang their last duet, in danger of their lives -
For the foe was armed wit htoasting forks and cruel carving knives.

Then GILBERT gave the signal to his fierce Mongolian horde;
With a frightful burst of fireworks the Chinks they swarmed aboard.
Abandoning their sampans, and their pullaways and junks,
They battened down the hatches on the crew within their bunks.

Then Griddlebone she gave a screech, for she was badly skeered;
I am sorry to admit it, but she quickly disappeared.
She probably escaped with ease, I’m sure she was not drowned -
But a serried ring of flashing steel Growltiger did surround.

The ruthless foe pressed forward, in stubborn rank on rank;
Growltiger to his vast surprise was forced to walk the plank.
He who a hundred victims had driven to that drop,
At the end of all his crimes was forced to go ker-flip, ker-flop.

Oh there was joy in Wapping when the news flewthrough the land;
At Maidenhead and Henley there was dancing on the strand.
Rats were roasted whole at Brentford, and at Victoria Dock,
And a day of celebration was commanded in Bangkok.

It’s National Poetry Month and what better way for cat lovers to celebrate than a read – or reread – of T.S. Elliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. This bit of whimsy was written in the 1930s and published in 1939 with illustrations (the beige cover above). In 1982 an edition was published with Edward Gorey illustration (the orange cover above).  What a fabulous combo for cat and poetry lovers.  I have the Gorey edition. It’s falling apart from years of love.  

The complete text can be viewed on-line: Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, which is nice.  However, you do miss the tactile pleasure of holding a book and you miss Gorey’s wonderful cat illustrations.

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten, 10
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s,
My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

T.S. Elliot – The WasteLand

From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were—I have not seen
As others saw—I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
And all I lov’d, I loved alone.
Then—in my childhood—in the dawn
Of a most stormy life—was drawn
From ev’ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still:
From the torrent, or the fountain,
From the red cliff of the mountain,
From the sun that ’round me roll’d
In its autumn tint of gold—
From the lightning in the sky
As it pass’d me flying by—
From the thunder and the storm,
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.

Edgar Allan Poe, Alone.

–

Este poema ali de cima abria a edição portuguesa do Flores do Mal, uma edição bilíngue, muito bonita, que creio ter sido o primeiro livro de poesia que eu li sem obrigação de ler. Não sou lá o maior fã do formato, mas ando fascinado pela métrica de alguns poetas de língua inglesa. O conteúdo não me bate tanto, romantismo fim-de-século é muito sacal para minha cabeça cética. Mas lendo o T.S. Elliot, pensei agora “porque eu não conheço este cara melhor?”.

Lembrando sempre, Poland=Timbuktu.

Mother Nature by Teh O

I admit, I cheated a little with this one, since I wrote in in late March — but I’d still like to share it, since I feel it fits with Read Write Poem Prompt # 72, “Spring Has Sprung”. Enjoy.

-Nicole

———————————————————-

April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

- T.S. Elliot, “Wasteland”

I call you up with cruelty. I break your back
with rain. My fingers dig into your flesh
and pull life upward from the thin cloak
of death that you put on last winter. You can’t

fool me.
You just look brown, tired, and
barren.

I work because I see pale lavender
buried inside you. I dig because I smell
green just below your surfaces. I call up
buds from you like an impatient taskmaster, because
I want the names of butterflies, honeybees, and
ladybugs upon your lips – I want these jewels

to hover
around your face
like a chorus of wandering
insect souls. This is
their time, too, to shine and explode
colors and wings in the splendor of
sunlight, to dig their little bodies
inside buds to drop seeds onto you
in slow time motion

(it takes weeks
to fashion the beginning of a tree),

and to capture the eyes
and torment of these humans. It is
for them, you know

that I make all of this happen – them
and the decoration of creatures resting
aboard your firm yet gentle skin. Their
souls bloom in response when they see
your colors. Their flesh firms, their
hearts dance, their songs rise up from
winter’s colors and fills the air – and memory
kindles desire. This must all happen now –
your temporary pain gives birth to astounding
beauty, and ever year you are praised the Universe over;

so though you curse me now, you must
understand, dear Earth, that I

must send you
the rain.

Written 3/25/09
© 2009 Nicole Nicholson. All Rights Reserved.

Stumble It!

I know I already rove|rŌv| (past rave – don’t bother checking that, it’s definitely right) about Dada Life, going as far as to upload their January mixtape for y’alls delectation.

Having finally got round to some of their previous output, I’ve concluded that one post wasn’t enough to do ’em justice; consequently I’ve taken some time out of my hectic schedule to (completely pointlessly) download-then-re-upload-to-a-different-location their September mix. I’m feeling generous, so here’s a Cagedbaby mix that I’m particularly fond of as well.

I’m also fairly excited about giving Joris Voorn’s Balance 014 a listen; with more than 100 tracks mixed up, you’re getting value for money if nothing else. Even The Daily Telegraph’s Economics Editor has aired his two-penneth on it:

Listening over to it again this morning I suddenly realised what it reminded me of: not of other dance albums or indeed other music at all – but of the first time I read The Wasteland. Just like Eliot’s poem, this album is a cocktail of intertextuality.

He was, at least, being self-confessedly la-di-da throughout the piece (entitled, Dance music: let’s get pretentious), so I’m going to outsource any further Telegraph-centered derision to the reader.

Now – having, once more, arisen to find the job pages bereft of inspiration – I’m off to catch a glimpse of Banksy’s One Nation Under CCTV before it’s removed; I may even be able to pop my flash-mob cherry here this afternoon. I’ll let you know how I get on.

One more thing to add to the list of things-that-annoy-me-far-more-than-they-should: tea and coffee cups with ‘tea’ and ‘coffee’ scrawled all over them in a variety of (invariably hideous) fonts.

(link to image)

Thomas Stearns Eliot - T.S Elliot (1888-1965)

Thomas Stearns Eliot – T.S Elliot

T. S. Eliot is one of the giants of modern literature, highly distinguished as poet, literary critic, dramatist, and editor/publisher. His poems underlined the disillusionment of a younger post-World-War-I generation with the values and conventions—both literary and social—of the Victorian era. His poems created a revolution in the world of poetry, and his essays introduced new perspectives towards literature. Elliot triggered and discussed significant social and religious issues, which made him a ‘post-modern visionary’ of his time. During his time, he was negatively labeled a type of ‘evil’ by such famous artists as C.S Lewis and Canadian academic Robert Ian Scott. In the words of Ted Hughes, “Each year Elliot’s presence reasserts itself at a deeper level, to an audience that is surprised to find itself more chastened, more astonished, more humble.”

Some of his most well known works include:

• Ash Wednesday
• Burnt Norton
• Collected Poems
• East Coker
• Four Quartets
• The Complete Poems & Plays
• The Dry Salvages
• The Waste Land

‘between the idea and the reality, between the intention and the act, falls the shadow’

                              -T.S Elliot

I found myself looking forward to lent this year. I don’t know if that’s weird… but having just moved churches properly (in that I’ve stopped going to the other one) I’ve realised that I haven’t been praying much recently…

Obviously big, sad decisions like that don’t require that kind of thing

and one of my recurring lenten resolutions is to pray the office more often than I feel like it…

I also like the spark of creativity in the blogs during lent. finding new/old ways to talk about big truths. It appeals to me.

Anyway, I’m not feeling creative today so you get TS Elliot instead

Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessed face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice

-TS Elliot from Ash-Wednesday

In each memo I read , I was repeatedly impressed by the depth of Calvino’s literary knowledge. I was astounded by the esoteric and arcane references and quotes. However, my own knowledge is slightly more modern but just as esoteric and I feel that it should be employed to further describe multiplicity.

T.S. Elliot’s poem the Wasteland is a prime example of multiplicity. Each sentence, each line, and each verse holds a myriad of meanings and reference and influences. Beginning with a Latin and Greek epigraph from The Satyricon of Petronius, the poem continues in its esoteric connections and allusions, pulling from the bible, the myth of the fisher king, the Upanishads, and even Buddha’s Fire Sermon.

Each reference connects it to a wealth of knowledge that is not usually possessed by a single individual. It is a rare person who can read the Waste Land and understand or even find every reference.

The choppy and modernist style provides innumerable disconnects where one stanza does not seem to logically follow another but the poem also possesses connections to several of the greatest works of literature in our history.

…

Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations.                                                
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days.

…from The Waste Land by T.S.  Elliot

(threeasfour fall 2009; photos from refinery 29 and wwwd)

Its been some time since I have really sat down and collected my thoughts to write a somewhat enthralling post. But here is goes….

Life has been pretty much Trader Joes all day everyday; I love it! I have met so many new faces in just two weeks of working. Today marks 7 days in a row of work. Even though the glistering sun is shining ever so brightly, working inside at this place has its rewards. I am blessed among men to have this job.

Other than work I have been reading The Wasteland by T.S. Elliot to inspire myself to keep slogging it out with poetry. I aspire to be a writer in all areas but I really “think poetry” when I’m processing something to write. Maybe you other bloggers feel the same?

In the Shuffle: Jason Upton singing over the simple guitar tone about the fear of the Lord and the Fear of Man. I can never get enough of this song.

Also, “there will be days when you feel like flying  and there will be days when you feel like crying, never give up and never stop trying.” This song, Samuel, always moves me as well.

Look for more poems and more stories to tell….

Thanks for reading

As many of you know the writer John Updike just died at the age of 76. By a freak accident (he was the keynote speaker at a writing conference in Princeton, New Jersey, where I put on a workshop) I once spent part of an evening with him and we also had breakfast the next day. This poem from my book Dogs Dream of Running was the result. It pretty much encapsulates the history of American letters and is absolutely true.

John Updike Spills the Beans

Riding through New Jersey

It was about this same time of year. We

were driving through a rural New Jersey

night, the wife of a Princeton Italian pro-

fessor, Tom Kennedy and me. She had

organized a day for us to conduct writing

workshops and now after the culminating

event, a lecture by the legendary John

Updike, we were headed to a reception

at the house of a dean. “Wasn’t Updike

something?” we all asked, remembering

the eloquence of his extemporaneous

words as they blended seamlessly with

excerpts which he read, like some vast

swelling on a literary sea, to raise us, not

to truth or beauty, but to a new, profound

level of sleep. Tom admitted to nodding

off several times and I to once awakening

with a start. Even our hostess could not

deny, “with the warmth, the lights, the `oh

so busy’ day…” But now how deliciously

refreshed we were, ready over cocktails

and hors d’oeuvres to impress each other,

all over again, with cleverness and wit.

Later, in the Cadillac en route to the motel,

we three were joined by the man himself.

He proved humble in a way the successful

are humble, dismissing their genius, though

mindful the rest of us be sure to disagree.

A lanky man slightly bending an enormous

head, he said, “I couldn’t help but notice

there was one person who…fell asleep.”

Was that the engine or his rising voice that

roared? He continued, “All I could think of

was how I might rouse this poor soul in the

third row from her stuporous dreams.” At this

pronoun Tom and I exhaled, and our driver

let us know, from where she was sitting

in the wings she didn’t see anything. “Well,”

he sighed, “that reminds me of when T.S.

Elliot came to Yale. We had waited hours

in line to hear him speak. Student seats

were high in the balcony and amidst the

rising radiator heat…” And here the courtly

Updike chortled to himself, like a spent

wave tickling the sand on a distant beach.

“Can you imagine,” he said, “I fell asleep.”

It is likely near impossible for me to write this without being highly ironical.  Here I am blogging about blogging.  And why not?  Plenty of writers have written about writing, even some good ones: E.M Forster, Annie Dillard, T.S Eliot, C.S. Lewis et al. Actually, most writers that I have read have written, at one time or another, about writing.  That having been said, I’m not trying to join their ranks by writing/blogging about blogging.

What I wonder is, does anyone really read these things?  The number of blogs in circulation is well in the hundreds of millions.  There are literally thousands of individuals from every socio-economic class, political affiliation, nationality (and every other representational category) writing and publishing blogs on a daily, even hourly, basis.  We know that people write, but I wonder how many people really read. Are we just publishing our thoughts for the heck of it?

I don’t  think many people really read my blog.  I know my big sister is a regular to this site, but she might be an exception to the rule.  I’m not even really sure if Deanna reads this.  Are we just spewing off steam, trying to be heard, reassuring ourselves that there might be someone listening?  Is this online “community” really a community?  Or are we fooling ourselves?

If you read this, do me a favor and let me know.