Geoffrey Neill and Muriel(about a year ago)
DESIRE DONE
—Geoffrey Neill, Sacramento
(after reading wm. blake's "abstinence sows sand...")
why is it love, with faces flush and tousled hair,
spit spent renewed in lang'rous limb and moistened snare,
once likely sung, spoke soft or beautifully schemed,
should find itself then but dull, overdrawn and dun,
should sleep?
and when remembered find contempt, be sneered and shunned,
should even find the object of its lusty leer
besmirched, besmeared? is love the sum of constance
or its end?
___________________
ABSTINENCE SOWS SAND...
—Wm. Blake
Abstinence sows sand all over
The ruddy limbs & flaming hair,
But Desire Gratified
Plants fruits of life & beauty there.
___________________
UNEVEN
—Geoffrey Neill
(after wm. blake's "eternity")
i was the joy, the prickly flower
i was the bird, the fletchéd arrow
i was the cloud illumed by the sun
the sheltered creek that swift sang and ran
but i was bound by bands called love:
when ran, pursued by hounds and heeled
if rained then told of pain to feel
if flew, defletched and feathers told
were beautiful and bright, then threshed
if flourished, pruned, picked, plucked:
odd if it's love, even if not
odd for love, even if it's not
___________________
ETERNITY
—Wm. Blake
He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy:
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sun rise.
__________________
Thanks to Geoff Neill for today's high-class poetry! Geoffrey Neill is one of the alternating hosts at Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Café in Sacramento. He writes: I've lived in California my whole life (thirty-one complete years, one partial year), currently on 2nd Ave in Sacramento. I've got a daughter (Muriel, and the pinnacle of evolution) who is nearly two years old. I recently started publishing chapbooks of local poets under the name /little m press/. I'm one of the features on March 29 at the Sacramento Poetry Center. I sometimes eat falafel in a pita. Is that enough? I don't really know what else to say…
—Geoffrey Neill, Sacramento
(after reading wm. blake's "abstinence sows sand...")
why is it love, with faces flush and tousled hair,
spit spent renewed in lang'rous limb and moistened snare,
once likely sung, spoke soft or beautifully schemed,
should find itself then but dull, overdrawn and dun,
should sleep?
and when remembered find contempt, be sneered and shunned,
should even find the object of its lusty leer
besmirched, besmeared? is love the sum of constance
or its end?
___________________
ABSTINENCE SOWS SAND...
—Wm. Blake
Abstinence sows sand all over
The ruddy limbs & flaming hair,
But Desire Gratified
Plants fruits of life & beauty there.
___________________
UNEVEN
—Geoffrey Neill
(after wm. blake's "eternity")
i was the joy, the prickly flower
i was the bird, the fletchéd arrow
i was the cloud illumed by the sun
the sheltered creek that swift sang and ran
but i was bound by bands called love:
when ran, pursued by hounds and heeled
if rained then told of pain to feel
if flew, defletched and feathers told
were beautiful and bright, then threshed
if flourished, pruned, picked, plucked:
odd if it's love, even if not
odd for love, even if it's not
___________________
ETERNITY
—Wm. Blake
He who binds to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy:
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity's sun rise.
__________________
Thanks to Geoff Neill for today's high-class poetry! Geoffrey Neill is one of the alternating hosts at Poetry Unplugged at Luna’s Café in Sacramento. He writes: I've lived in California my whole life (thirty-one complete years, one partial year), currently on 2nd Ave in Sacramento. I've got a daughter (Muriel, and the pinnacle of evolution) who is nearly two years old. I recently started publishing chapbooks of local poets under the name /little m press/. I'm one of the features on March 29 at the Sacramento Poetry Center. I sometimes eat falafel in a pita. Is that enough? I don't really know what else to say…
"Desire Done" and "Uneven" are currently being published as part of Richard Hansen's Poems-For-All series. Come help us celebrate PFA's ninth anniversary this Wednesday, March 10, at 7:30pm at The Book Collector, 1008 24th St., Sacramento.
Also this week in NorCal poetry:
(for a more complete listing of events, see eskimopie.net)
•••Monday (3/8), 7:30pm: Sacramento Poetry Center presents Jim Powell and Heidi Steidlmayer at HQ for the Arts at 1719 25th St., Sacramento. [See last Friday's post for bios.]
Also this week in NorCal poetry:
(for a more complete listing of events, see eskimopie.net)
•••Monday (3/8), 7:30pm: Sacramento Poetry Center presents Jim Powell and Heidi Steidlmayer at HQ for the Arts at 1719 25th St., Sacramento. [See last Friday's post for bios.]
•••Sat. (3/13), 2pm: Citrus Heights Area Poets present a poetry event at Barnes & Noble bookstore on Sunrise Blvd. in Citrus Heights.
A Million Tomorrows at The Cosmic Café:
You are invited to visit the Cozmic Café (594 Main St., Placerville) during the month of March, 2010 to view photographs and celebrate children and the Season for Nonviolence. As part of The Season for Nonviolence, the exhibit, “Our Children: A Million Tomorrows,” features photographs of children from the U.S.A., Mexico and Vietnam by local photographers, Janis Arnell and Irene Lipshin. The theme of the collection is inspired by the words of Mahatma Gandhi, “...if we are to reach real peace in this world...we shall have to begin with the children." We celebrate children in our exhibit, with the understanding that a peaceful and safe tomorrow depends on caring for all “our children,” here and around the world.
___________________
GUTTERSPOUTS AND BIRDSONG
—Geoffrey Neill
the books she stole from bookstores she would hardly ever read
except for maybe on the nights she took them
they tottered in the corners of her dark-at-midday room
that she rented for a hundred bucks a week
the ceiling dripped with something some called water
the walls sweated more than her at night
she'd crouch against those coffin walls, hear voices coughing in the hall
and close her eyes and tell her hands to write.
the books stacked in the corners mingled, moldered into rot
and the pages uppermost began to open like a womb
the vines that sprouted there bound themselves up in her hair
and they blossomed where her irises had been
she walked along the city's streets some mornings
and filled her head with fog and leaves, with gutterspouts and birdsong
she shaped her hands like cups and gathered water from the river
as it rushed around her ankles like her life
then out to sea.
___________________
MOVEMENTS OF THE SPHERES
—Geoffrey Neill
so, tell me about the time you were
sitting on the carpet with your legs under you,
you had no socks on, your sister was small,
someone was in the room, or had just walked out,
you had a very specific feeling that you can't name
but remember intensely with sharp nostalgia, tell me
about the time that, laughing, standing on the sidewalk,
you looked over and saw something across the street
that knit your brow, and you suddenly understood
that everyone's life is different and it's not always safe
to trust your trusting instinct because that is not
how he acted when he knew you were watching,
or tell about the time you lay on the hood or roof or grass or sand
your feet flat with your knees up or your hands under your legs
and you couldn't believe how big you felt, how each part of you
was expanding at a rate faster than the rest of the universe,
that the stars were so far from you, so far from each other,
and their number so great, and the space between them so vast,
and the light so old and mysterious, that there must be
something, please god something that will fill the space
between your arm and body, that will warm the spot
that dips and curves up into your neck,
that will feel like lips and breath behind your ear.
yes, i am here
__________________
PREEMPTIVE
—Geoffrey Neill
it is possible to steal from me
something that is not
mine opportunity cost and all that
jazz improvised on a momentarily
daily basis as she leans
against the wall and laughs
laughs at some delightfully clever
wit only up to his shoulder and his
chin two of them together
hopefully and
perhaps
i'll soon still be seen
as skipping quicker than
an inanimate flat stone
over serene unrippled un
ruffled lake water only
to sink more slowly journey
ended among so many other
pebbles worn smoother until
into sand into mud into silt into dust
to dust and when new
breath incarnate is improvised with
maybe a little more
jazz
this time to make you
swing in time to
the groove baby its
the groove that makes that
ponytail swing against the drywall in
time to the upright bass solo
so give me more
but dont start until
i can handle it
i swear.
___________________
Today's LittleNip:
I can remember when the air was clean and sex was dirty.
—George Burns
___________________
—Medusa
A Million Tomorrows at The Cosmic Café:
You are invited to visit the Cozmic Café (594 Main St., Placerville) during the month of March, 2010 to view photographs and celebrate children and the Season for Nonviolence. As part of The Season for Nonviolence, the exhibit, “Our Children: A Million Tomorrows,” features photographs of children from the U.S.A., Mexico and Vietnam by local photographers, Janis Arnell and Irene Lipshin. The theme of the collection is inspired by the words of Mahatma Gandhi, “...if we are to reach real peace in this world...we shall have to begin with the children." We celebrate children in our exhibit, with the understanding that a peaceful and safe tomorrow depends on caring for all “our children,” here and around the world.
___________________
GUTTERSPOUTS AND BIRDSONG
—Geoffrey Neill
the books she stole from bookstores she would hardly ever read
except for maybe on the nights she took them
they tottered in the corners of her dark-at-midday room
that she rented for a hundred bucks a week
the ceiling dripped with something some called water
the walls sweated more than her at night
she'd crouch against those coffin walls, hear voices coughing in the hall
and close her eyes and tell her hands to write.
the books stacked in the corners mingled, moldered into rot
and the pages uppermost began to open like a womb
the vines that sprouted there bound themselves up in her hair
and they blossomed where her irises had been
she walked along the city's streets some mornings
and filled her head with fog and leaves, with gutterspouts and birdsong
she shaped her hands like cups and gathered water from the river
as it rushed around her ankles like her life
then out to sea.
___________________
MOVEMENTS OF THE SPHERES
—Geoffrey Neill
so, tell me about the time you were
sitting on the carpet with your legs under you,
you had no socks on, your sister was small,
someone was in the room, or had just walked out,
you had a very specific feeling that you can't name
but remember intensely with sharp nostalgia, tell me
about the time that, laughing, standing on the sidewalk,
you looked over and saw something across the street
that knit your brow, and you suddenly understood
that everyone's life is different and it's not always safe
to trust your trusting instinct because that is not
how he acted when he knew you were watching,
or tell about the time you lay on the hood or roof or grass or sand
your feet flat with your knees up or your hands under your legs
and you couldn't believe how big you felt, how each part of you
was expanding at a rate faster than the rest of the universe,
that the stars were so far from you, so far from each other,
and their number so great, and the space between them so vast,
and the light so old and mysterious, that there must be
something, please god something that will fill the space
between your arm and body, that will warm the spot
that dips and curves up into your neck,
that will feel like lips and breath behind your ear.
yes, i am here
__________________
PREEMPTIVE
—Geoffrey Neill
it is possible to steal from me
something that is not
mine opportunity cost and all that
jazz improvised on a momentarily
daily basis as she leans
against the wall and laughs
laughs at some delightfully clever
wit only up to his shoulder and his
chin two of them together
hopefully and
perhaps
i'll soon still be seen
as skipping quicker than
an inanimate flat stone
over serene unrippled un
ruffled lake water only
to sink more slowly journey
ended among so many other
pebbles worn smoother until
into sand into mud into silt into dust
to dust and when new
breath incarnate is improvised with
maybe a little more
jazz
this time to make you
swing in time to
the groove baby its
the groove that makes that
ponytail swing against the drywall in
time to the upright bass solo
so give me more
but dont start until
i can handle it
i swear.
___________________
Today's LittleNip:
I can remember when the air was clean and sex was dirty.
—George Burns
___________________
—Medusa
Geoff & Muriel find out how much money
professional poets make...
