the melding of diamonds into cereal globes, tallow on the chests of the filigree cancels, the blocks spun nude / I hate I love / the plurals that stew in glances emetic
Clark Coolidge
Very nice! What's the Half and Half method? — Asked by serifofnottingham

It’s this.

All projects are posted to the projects page.

The Blackbird: A Diptych An experimental collaboration with Wordlings, using the Half and Half method with the same seed text. - you proud men of mercury Wordlings idyllic filled the long window and glosses loaded on long mercury walks inflections of innuendos shadow of the umbrage the rage of the blackbird the painted pantomime of whirled mercy, and god, a flow of gold, and good and lucid, inseparable rhythms oh you proud men of Mercury and the thin men of Haddam I know the blackbird is involved glosses loaded with thin inseparable sheets long rod of barbaric glass one of seven circles crowded with loaded glass seasons of engines change blackbirds of euphony must be flying - Three Minds Uut Jesuits are part of three minds wearing evening all afternoon not tampons. But I know too a fear sleek as a kite whirled in the restaurant— the one that orphic pull-ups dutifully drowned by the eye increasing on its own weight among twenty snowy mountains. All of us are catalysts traced in the shadow, a satin couch amazed by barbaric glass. Sing freely with tortoise breath, oh bawds of euphony, snag your goads on the little rhythms you do not see. seed text: “Thirteen Ways of a Looking at a Blackbird,” by Wallace Stevensart by Eugenia Loli

The Blackbird: A Diptych

An experimental collaboration with Wordlings, using the Half and Half method with the same seed text.

-

you proud men of mercury

Wordlings

idyllic filled the long window
and glosses loaded
on long mercury walks
inflections of innuendos
shadow of the umbrage
the rage of the blackbird
the painted pantomime
of whirled mercy, and god,
a flow of gold, and good
and lucid, inseparable rhythms
oh you proud men of Mercury
and the thin men of Haddam
I know the blackbird is involved
glosses loaded
with thin inseparable sheets
long rod of barbaric glass
one of seven circles crowded with loaded glass
seasons of engines change
blackbirds of euphony must be flying

-

Three Minds

Uut

Jesuits are part of three minds
wearing evening all afternoon
not tampons. But I know too
a fear sleek as a kite
whirled in the restaurant—
the one that orphic pull-ups
dutifully drowned
by the eye
increasing on its own weight
among twenty snowy mountains.
All of us are catalysts
traced in the shadow,
a satin couch
amazed by barbaric glass.

Sing freely with tortoise breath,
oh bawds of euphony,
snag your goads
on the little rhythms
you do not see.

seed text: “Thirteen Ways of a Looking at a Blackbird,” by Wallace Stevens
art by Eugenia Loli

Where do you get your inspiration.? — Asked by shae-yolo

Directly: great poets and writers, many of whom I talk about or quote in this blog. Language is amazing. I’m also directly inspired the by media of blogging itself—I like actually having my stuff read and the interaction.

Indirectly: the great mystery of life, God, love, melancholy, awesome music (electronic genres of any kind), academics and education, the dangerous paradoxes of postmodernism, and a dash of ego.

spark plug cologne/ all over death star

A Hand Reaching A hand reaching to my cigarette— a condensational Ball in the Head under one star and individually sized in its vast old oaken wine barrel. I face myself like waiver forms and cheetahs that move the sky, sunshine somehow belting out simple contours invested in the damps of the eye repenting forever in the best way because Lakers taste like ices glassed without heat and the awards are lumps of a tasteless chorizo tripwired for geese-mating. Sylvester’s swords, vug of brilliants, correctly fucks a graduate of world enough and tongue. seed text: Solution Passage, by Clark Coolidgeart by franz falckenhaus

A Hand Reaching

A hand reaching to my cigarette—
a condensational Ball in the Head
under one star
and individually sized
in its vast old oaken wine barrel.

I face myself like
waiver forms and cheetahs that move the sky,
sunshine somehow belting out simple contours
invested in the damps of the eye
repenting forever in the best way

because Lakers taste like
ices glassed without heat
and the awards are lumps of a tasteless
chorizo tripwired for geese-mating.

Sylvester’s swords, vug of brilliants,
correctly fucks a graduate
of world enough and tongue.

seed text: Solution Passage, by Clark Coolidge
art by franz falckenhaus

They say automatic fire isn’t and
nothing green in the snow sprouts
anything, excepting the clank and
sting of M1 clips
The Atlantic Block: 101st 
Styling over the flat
in glance machine. Shown over and over again,
the wobbles balance.
Clark Coolidge

new Aufgang

Spotify

I just got floth-ed! I can feel the bristles all over me…

I just got floth-ed! I can feel the bristles all over me…

towards Keefer’s.

cordeliagablewrites:

Just how American is the heat lamp,
defecting ants in his New York apartment?
They want just a photograph.

Do they look happy?  Candidly, they
couldn’t figure it before 
scrubbing the blank, however true.

The balding river reflects in his tomb,
is sitting.  Slack suits adjust—yes, 
everyone is dying for a bit of toast.

What are some academic lit or poetry journals based on the west coast?

Allen Ginsberg’s Celestial Homework By Harriet Staff, poetryfoundation.org We have our friends at the Paris Review blog to thank for point­ing us to Open Cul­ture where they’ve post­ed the celes­tial syl­labus to Allen Gins­berg’s 1977 course at the Jack Ker­ouac School of Dis …

Allen Ginsberg’s Celestial Homework
By Harriet Staff, poetryfoundation.org

We have our friends at the Paris Review blog to thank for point­ing us to Open Cul­ture where they’ve post­ed the celes­tial syl­labus to Allen Gins­berg’s 1977 course at the Jack Ker­ouac School of Dis …

The Works of Love are Nevertheless Not the Works of Love He engineered a strange loneliness from the waist up, part of the order of pure sound that should plunge into temptation but tenses the bourgeoisie and holds up the huge doors. Instantly the paintings all around you knock my sad theme in several ways cinching to the marvelously altered night like your cake, saved for them but intrinsically a warmth, which inflects a kind of death with a hundred tongues. seed text: Selected Poems by Rainer Maria Rilkeart by El gaio

The Works of Love are Nevertheless Not the Works of Love

He engineered a strange loneliness
from the waist up,
part of the order of pure sound
that should plunge into temptation
but tenses the bourgeoisie and
holds up the huge doors.
Instantly the paintings all around you
knock my sad theme
in several ways
cinching to the marvelously altered night
like your cake, saved for them
but intrinsically a warmth,
which inflects a kind of death
with a hundred tongues.

seed text: Selected Poems by Rainer Maria Rilke
art by El gaio

Half and Half Project

I’ve been writing poems lately that put a new twist on a pair of (for me) old and reliable forms, namely, the Minimalist Instagram project and good-ol’ automatic writing. It’s a simple concept: write a line or half a line using a seed text (in the style of the Instagram and Bibliomancy project), then write a line or half a line in an automatic, semi-automatic or improvisational mode. These two processes occur alternately, but in general, the automatist strands should not be conceived in the “context” of the poem’s evolving shape. The automatic language may, however, deliberately continue and finish phrases syntactically (and vice versa). For example, in this poem I wrote “He engineered a strange,” then flipped to a random phrase in my source text, The Selected Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke and got “loneliness.” Then I continued, “from the waist up, / part of the order…” then to the book for _”a pure sound.” Etc, generating the next several lines (italics are Rilke):

that should plunge into temptation
but tenses the bourgeoisie and
holds up the huge doors.

Instantly the paintings all around you
knock my sad theme
in several ways…

Proceed accordingly until you feel satisfied. Revise lightly, mostly punctuation. Embrace dissonance.

A word about the automatic writing. I’ve been thinking lately about the poets (Spicer, Mac Low, Coolidge, Perelman) who turn their mind into metaphorical radio tuners that listen to a “voice” in their head that is really the clamor of modern experience. Often this entails an artificial form of stimulation, like the Grand Piano project or other forms of “automatic listening.” The source is not conscious but neither is it subjective or expressive, in the sense of issuing from the writer’s ego. A fragmented, incoherent conversation is going on in the background noise of all our lives, and these poets attempt to record it. Something like this is what’s going on my microdreams. After a while, the “flow” of this voice gets easier to channel and becomes the touch-point for automatic writing. I’m sure some writers will know what I’m talking about. Anyone who is improvisational in any way also has a point of contact. Use this sense of “automatic” writing when writing for this project.

That’s it. Submit the results. Have fun.

All the half and half poems.