For she, whose parts maintainde a perfect musique,
Whose beautie shin’de more then the blushing morning,
Who much did passe in state the stately mountaines,
in straightnes past the Cedars of the forrests,
Hath cast me wretch into eternall evening,
By taking her two Sunnes from these dark vallies.
Or to approach this romantic doldrum from another angle:
Hath cast me into a perfect musique…
Cast a cold eye
On life, on death,
Horseman, pass by!
Irish poet William Butler Yeats
June 13, 1865 – January 28, 1939
Horseman, pass by!
Horseman, pass by!
abstracted painting blended
with arcane images
of ancient Egypt
suggesting influences
of the esoteric
and modernism
upon
Yeats
public domain Egyptology image: Internet Archive
painting 2003 S. McCabe
Your love
Should never be offered to the mouth of a stranger,
Only to someone who has the valor and daring
To cut pieces of their soul off with a knife
Then weave them into a blanket
To protect you.
Hafiz (or Hafez) a Persian poet: 1325 – 1390.
I find the vivid imagery in his poem, in a sense, circular.
Which explains my use of repeated images.
While addressing his echo across the centuries.
The Lover Compareth His State to a Shippe
in Perilous Storme Tossed on the Sea
The Lover Sheweth How He Is Forsaken of Such
as He Sometime Enjoyed
Ys Yt Possible
What shulde I saye
The Lover Complayneth the Unkindness of His Love
Biography: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Wyatt_(poet)
Poetic testimony a’shifting
mother barely
threadbare stirring
peas & porridge nine days old in the pot
shadows
a’shifting
golden vibrations overflow
cauldrons
circling
three places
the oak the stag
a’shifting
Black and white images influenced by readings of Ferdinand the Bull as a child
Ferdinand’s delight inhaling perfumed flowers beneath a gnarly tree
papery Spanish ink ascribing metamorphosis to performance
in emanations of the ancient, kinetically flowing spine
in rainfall of visionary code addressing wounds
strenuous chalking of shamanic timelines
body politic of dreamtime silence
battery pack wire testimony
pale butcher’s twine
binding frayed
poetics
June 10, 1974
Edinburgh, Scotland
Joseph Beuys:
Blackboards and drawings of pots from
Three Pots for the Poorhouse Action
Photo credit: Richard Demarco
Physics again standing on its head
Physicists discovering an upside – down world
The elementary particles comprising stars can leap
It seems
Across time (if there really is time) reappearing
And appearing in numerous locations at once
The simultaneous stars stretching across infinity
Are one and the same
Projections of one star
One star only we see here and there
As if altering as if shadowing our days and years
With a spectacularly aloof performance
Like the lover
You just can’t forget
Previously published in my fourth book of poetry Hierarchy of Loss (Ekstasis Editions 2007)
Digital art based on an ink sketch in my moleskin sketchbook.
The beasts of the forest
Wishing us well
In poemimage May 2012 a Rilke poem using the image below. I happened upon it today & considered: Is this figure dancing or dowsing. The title came to me while manipulating layers in Photoshop. A wee ditty followed soon after.
Additional image:
Speculation into the investigation:
An inked manuscript penned by sure hand,
billowing dark Satanic mills,
a winged and weightless choir,
shadow of a blooming oak
across the bowling alley,
7 – Eleven coffee to go,
shoes with blinking lights.
Bukowski’s Bluebird and Blake’s Tyger
in performance.
0:00 – 0:56
0:56 – 1:12
1:12 – 2:10
2:10 – 3:06
3:06 – 4:02
4:02 – 4:58
4:58 – 5:54
5:54 – 6:50
6:50 – 7:46
7:46 – 8:23
You can silently enjoy
the Beatle’s sound collage
Revolution 9
by following the time code
between images
above
(a Dada/Fluxus action)
or
this link
to
the full
eight minutes +
of inspired mayhem
on their White Album:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJeqOoc4HmI
Amazingly
within five years
The Beatles traveled artistically
and sonically
from I Want to Hold Your Hand
to
Dada / surreal poetry
and a psychedelia infused with literary and cinematic
overtones.
As 2014 begins
you may find yourself
beginning or ending
travel
into or out of
cyclical spheres.
Like
a comet.
Like
comet #9.
poemimage 
