SmallType

2005-08-23T21:16:00.000-07:00

Katie ExitsI deleted all my previous posts. Goodnight.

2005-02-25T21:33:00.000-08:00

AwayRandy Roark and Tree Bernstein, 24 February 2005Forgive me if I hurt you-it's not what I wanted. We can lose ourselves in this life, but there's a reckoning as if behind a doorWe must go through, as I have done. If you have a heart in your body, the same as I have myself, you'll know that I'm no great light, good as I am.As she spoke, she felt the air in the room grow cold, a faint tinkling

2005-01-30T13:54:00.000-08:00

My friend, poet Nathan Maharaj, lives north of the border. The Hermit Then it rained three weeks solid scratched glass desk top stains smeared in code a week's work, the cat fell like liquid to the floor, where I was sorting through plans for the summer and a photograph taken at the zoo of nothing in particular, and the hydraulic cage of my blood suddenly felt razor thin almost not there at all

2005-01-23T21:01:00.000-08:00

Brooding Long spells of brooding and awe-inspiring calm, a sharp and metallic thundering of rain, little waves driven forward by the wind, rushing forward as if they could live without the sea— or the towering mountains of cloud and snow coated ridges of stone, yet no man is an island, no penny a bank, and no raindrop born without an ocean whose depths touch the heart of the world. - Randy

2005-01-17T09:08:00.000-08:00

After I Was Born After I was born there was nothing left to carve on the totem other than the light in the evening. And the mountains that were dancing, and water as it became air, and an eye as if it was a book. all the words that were falling out of my mouth clung to the walls as though escaping. The winter was tiresome, the sky a dense white-grey holding our green days sealed in a bottle

2005-01-02T01:04:00.000-08:00

Another ghazal written in 24 hours by Tree Bernstein and I, this time on New Year's Eve, 2004. Landscape (Randy Roark and Tree Bernstein) He came to me in a dream, a sad beautiful boy wandering back and forth in a world that wasn’t his. He was looking for a door, not To a house but to a world. He took me by the hand and then he disappeared, but he left his hand in mine. And then I woke up,

2004-12-31T19:58:00.000-08:00

I was asked to contribute to an anthology of poems written to accompany a series of collages, created by someone whose name I no longer remember. After he died, hundreds of collages were discovered--some as small as a matchbook--in boxes he had hidden throughout his house. I'm not sure who else will be in the collection, but it will be published in 2005 by Elik Press, 962 E. Lowell Ave., SLC, UT

2004-12-13T22:13:00.000-08:00

Tonight I gave a performance to open a birthday reading for an old friend. I'd known about this reading for quite a while, and I'd decided months ago while attempting (and failing) to find anything worth reading or rereading from my work, that I would instead count on creating a reading text from the journals I'd write during a 15-day trip through Turkey that I was already planning. And I bought

2004-10-25T20:48:00.000-07:00

Lament (A ghazal by Randy Roark and Tree Bernstein) "To begin to sing," he said, "is to become the sky. It is best to live when you are young, and to be separated from the one you love Can be the boldest teaching. What we learn here we can only learn through experience, and to be unafraid is to be unaware." Her laugh was both musical and merry. She teased him with a kiss as he lectured, then

2004-10-22T03:12:00.000-07:00

Like Thought Drifting Over Her Face Like the sunlight shielding my sleeping cat’s back, like a black crow pulling the bark from a dead branch, the sun is going down, the leaves are turning grey— Something good’s about to happen. There’s something I’m about to say.

2004-10-22T02:56:00.000-07:00

Bars Closing Down Slowly, in every direction, the sky began to grow black. Trying to keep out of harm’s way, we spoke of the darkness a few miles away, but the night was impenetrable, and we had to turn back. Days passed before the sun finally appeared, everything buried under a layer of ash— a landscape extinguished, utterly transformed. We had survived something extraordinary but the trails

2004-10-08T17:21:00.000-07:00

2004-10-04T18:56:00.002-07:00

A Quick Introduction to Meditation by Michael W. Taft CAVEAT LECTOR On the back of my toilet, I have a book called Ultimate Spanish. The sales pitch on the cover claims that the book is equivalent to "two full years of college-level study." Minus the dictionary at the back, they manage to do this in 320 pages or so. As someone who has studied at

2004-09-11T23:11:00.000-07:00

One of the positive aspects of this blog is that when you say you're going to do something, you feel more of a desire to get it done. So tonight, instead of watching tv, I decided to try to create at least a postable version of the "walk around town" poem I mentioned a couple of days ago. It will probably continue to change, but it's also probably substantially finished. R Instructions for Use

2004-09-08T22:24:00.000-07:00

Tree Bernstein and I also finished another ghazal tonight, the first one written in a single day. Curves (for Carl Dreyer) by Randy Roark and Tree Bernstein At 2 or 3 in the morning, the phone rang. The room was a kind of cell. Some of the pleasure was in my sorrow. The truth was in my head As a kind of atmosphere. The road was all curves. The shadows of some beech leaves shivered on my face.

2004-09-08T22:07:00.000-07:00

I have two female poet friends I've known for over 25 years, and once a month we get together to have dinner and talk. Last time Susan Edwards read a poem from another mutual poet friend of ours from 25 years ago, Laurie Price, who now lives in a cave above Barcelona and sells handcrafted jewelry in the plaza. I was moved by the poem--it read as if it were written in her head while descending the

2004-09-07T01:06:00.000-07:00

Heed by Tree Bernstein and Randy Roark She waits in the garden for him, but he is late. Vines curl around her ankles, twining the hem of her brown skirt, cloying naturally, And yet, she does not heed the signs. She sits on the stone steps and waits as green moss grows up the seams of her stockings. Absentmindedly she Gleams like ink on silk or a glaze of ice, shimmering in a world of thirst,

2004-09-03T01:10:00.000-07:00

OH, I GET IT--THE OBJECT IS THAT SEEING THE SAME POEM TOO MANY DAYS IN A ROW WILL MAKE ME WRITE ANOTHER ONE Listening to Frank Sinatra in a Dark Room In the wee small hours of the morning she breathes her spirit into my spirit happy with what she sees, unadorned, as if no one is driving-- a painted stillness, an almost silence all things always where she is.

2004-07-17T23:32:00.000-07:00

Dear Giselle: The aire is tawny with weather— the mist is shining, indistinct as water is, and the stars that would guide us whisper that I was wrong, as round and round the candle a moth flies, its wings as bright as April, evaporating into silence. I dreamed a field of Blakean angels like fireflies surrounding your face, their golden glow on your half-cheek, and behind you a

2004-06-10T17:11:00.000-07:00

"Rattle Up a Deer," a new CD from Farfalla Press featuring Anne Waldman and Bernadette Mayer, was recently released with my liner notes, as follows. In 1989, Eleni Sikelianos, then a poetics student at Naropa Institute, created the Student Union for Ethnic Inclusion (SUEI), an organization whose purpose was to raise funds to provide scholarships in order to broaden the ethnic diversity at Naropa

2004-05-28T09:10:00.000-07:00

Creating "After Giselle" Andy Hoffman at Elik Press is publishing the first collection Randy and I have written since "Over Large Stars." Randy asked me to put it together, and the message that follows is my response to him after he got his first look at the manuscript. Hi Randy, Thanks for the changes and suggestions. Here's what I think: 1. I agree that the ending isn't as strong as the

2004-05-21T20:06:00.000-07:00

The Quality of a Zen Argument Last night I was sitting on the floor of a new Indian restaurant in Boulder trying to explain what I enjoyed about zen arguments. I'd lived for a month with the poet Philip Whalen, who was also Sensei of the Hartford Street Zen Center, and recently recorded with Cheri Huber, another Sensei. For whatever reason, Philip and Cheri and I disagreed about practically

2004-04-29T18:21:00.000-07:00

This week I recorded with Cheri Huber (zen) and I remembered this story about Allen Ginsberg that I wanted to write down before I forgot it. The first day I went to his house, I was staring at his walls when I came across a copy of "The Heart Sutra" in Sanskrit. To be polite, I asked him what it was. He came over and stood next to me. "It's the (whatever the Sanskrit title is). It translates as

2004-04-23T23:49:00.000-07:00

I have written a piece called "Letters to a Young Poet," after Rilke's collection. I thought it was finished, but tonight I wrote what I think may be the fourth section. R Letters to a Young Poet, Part IV The odd thing is that I’ve been working the last two nights on similar “journalistic” pieces—one about a trip to England and the other my poetic apprentice materials. Since it’s fresh on my

2004-03-31T20:16:00.000-08:00

On Living Post-Regret, Part II (from an e-mail to MT) So I sent a copy of my e-mail to X to four people. The responses broke down along gender lines, but since then something else has been interesting. By the second round, the SAME "image" of a father was clear: no attention to daughter or the wrong kind, "losing them" at some point or from the beginning (alcohol, in jail, a Baptist minister),

2004-03-31T08:28:00.000-08:00

On Living Post-Regret (from an e-mail to Shira in London) It's weird to stop a twice-daily meditation practice after over 30 years. I'm suddenly this different, active guy, realizing that I used meditation as a means to avoid life and "cool down"--it was my alcohol or drug. Now that I'm not meditating I'm actually TAKING ACTION and making HORRIFIC mistakes (really--I did something really

2004-03-30T21:56:00.000-08:00

A short dialogue with Michael Taft about his poem prompted a reference to material in section III of this piece, so I hereby dedicate Part III to MT for prompting me to find it. R THAT OBJECT IS TO SEE CLEARLY: APPRENTICING WITH ALLEN GINSBERG (Originally published, May, 1982, “Naropa Bulletin”) I grew up beside a French-Canadian cabinetmaker. His family had passed cabinetmaking from father to

2004-03-29T17:57:00.000-08:00

I was telling Dean today that I saw a mini-concert by Jet on MTV last night and if you're too young to have caught the British invasion, here's your chance. Sure, the Who did it first (and better), but they have the good sense to know what works and how to use it and the reason the Who-Kinks-Animals et al were all so good in the first place. And they're sincere--there's no sense that they're

2004-03-28T21:16:00.000-08:00

Jim Cohn told that he had a different last "transmission" from Allen. After producing Allen's last recording session (of, incidentally, "Lay Down Yr Mountain"--available through the Museum of American Poetics as part of one of Jim's CDs), he asked Allen, "What was the "essence" of the transmission?" And Allen's last words to him were "Proclaim and renounce ego!" Jim' went on to express discontent

2004-03-28T01:14:00.000-08:00

Okay, I know this is a crazy story, but it's also true. R Addendum to the True Story of My Convalescence, or The More True Story of My Convalescence Although I thought when I finished "The True Story of My Convalescence" that I finally understood what was going on, the whole story turned on its head within days. When Michael’s reading spoke about the need to appease my father’s karma, I

2004-03-26T23:31:00.000-08:00

Sorry I'm cluttering up the blog tonight but so thankful to have it here, Michael! It includes an addendum to the story of my convalescence. I'm actually doing okay--very okay considering the circumstances. The "miraculousness" of it was that a still unexplained sequence of impossible (not nearly impossible but impossible) circumstances (mostly referenced in the story) prevented me from being

2004-03-26T23:00:00.000-08:00

Here's a response to a friend of mine (David) who pointed out an interesting article in the NYT today about how Mexico has a Santa Muerte--red as kali, and as bloodthirsty. And what David liked most about the article was that, when asked, they said that they had created her themselves in their own image. About creating your own gods, I think the Hindus (and modern psychiatry as well) is

2004-03-26T10:33:00.000-08:00

Poem Redux Here is my edit of my last poem. Email me (michaeltaft(at)earthlink.net)about which one you like better. Be sure to include *why.* The Woman Tree In night forest snow a huge oak bristles stiff sensitive black branches into the shimmering infinity of darkness. Screaming in anger her rippling bark deep and hoarse roaring wild earnest. She is the woman tree I touch my palm to her

2004-03-25T11:56:00.000-08:00

The Woman Tree In night forest snow A huge oak bristles its stiff sensitive black branches into the shimmering infinity of darkness. She is the woman tree screaming in anger her rippling bark deep and hoarse roaring wild earnest. I touch my palm to her trunk with assurance, it's OK, but her howling will never leave until the pain root runs dry. -- Michael Taft

2004-03-24T01:12:00.000-08:00

I was recently not asked to participate in a panel discussion held on Publishing and the Poet at Naropa University. But I began thinking about what I would have said, had I been asked. On Publishing Publishing is a constant goal of any writer. For an unpublished author, the desire is often a substitute for something else—a desire to be “good enough” or to be something like the people we admire

2004-03-23T02:27:00.000-08:00

Here's a review I wrote tonight, for a friend's book. R One of the aphorisms sprinkled throughout Michael Rothenberg’s “Unlimited Vision,” is one from Goethe’s “Conversation with Eckermann,” chosen to introduce a long catalog of Philip Whalen’s collected notebooks—each precisely dated. “And be sure you put to each poem the date at which you wrote it…. “Your poems will thus serve,” he said, “as a

2004-03-22T06:25:00.000-08:00

The True Story of My Convalescence (for love of Saraswati) On my first morning at the hospital, word began to spread that I’d been admitted and something was wrong with my neck. And the phone calls and e-mails and best wishes from friends began to arrive. People were praying for me, saying mantras for me, sending me good thoughts. I remember thinking that was nice, but I didn’t see how it could

2004-03-03T17:16:00.000-08:00

I wrote this e-mail to some friends at 3:30 this morning because I couldn't go to sleep without telling someone about it. Layne Redmond reminded me today that I forgot to mention that I was also completely soaked by the time I left due to the band emptying their water jars onto the heads in the front row. And, as she told me, all true births--spiritual, psychological, and physical--begin in water

2004-02-17T13:44:00.000-08:00

Burst Vessel wooden crypts whose carven oak covers I crowbarred open and dropped inside fishing for goddesses and newborns -- wrapped in see-through silk scarves dapple-patterned purple and tan -- long dead and ready for resurrection exhaling smell of spices and beer Pharoh's daughter dances before me when Arabic-spouting artist with mouse-brown hair Snow-dwelling Amazon athlete girl with empty

2004-02-16T20:14:00.000-08:00

December On a beech tree, deftly carved tahiti masks burnt in long, dark columns shudder under the barking crows sending shadows across the night sand beside us like whispers through watery silk, or the sensuous pressure of her blouse My fingers trembling like a fly's wings something deeper than me takes hold this night unwinding in empty bottles and music repeating on the stereo as the black

2004-02-16T15:28:00.000-08:00

Self-Portrait A ghazal by Randy Roark and Tree Bernstein He lived in silence and art, in amorous harmony with mysterious themes that surrounded him and led him into what was hidden, His wit unraveling, as if the book of decay is a library that has invaded his room, the decomposing wall a door That only opens in. His mind a mire of ancient cabalas, incantations, religions that flow from

2004-02-11T13:17:00.000-08:00

crows flock in a line of three fat palm trees simmering in the sun outside tarot cards and bottle opener on the desk beside me, i sweat in the dark solitude keyboard plastic my touchstone. -- MWT

2004-02-08T09:18:00.000-08:00

Lift Sunlight bursts through the red spray of tail feathers circling us, it seems, each feather-tip reading the currents like braille. It really doesn't get better than that. But wait. I'll let it if it can-- learning new things about the world through her-- the words in perpetual motion, until she stopped. "My leaves have all drifted from me." How humbled she is, new to flight, as if she

2004-02-06T13:46:00.000-08:00

Lethargy A ghazal by Randy Roark and Tree Bernstein Nothing happens in this room except the fall of light rendered so you can see and hear it flowing, a red and blue skirt, holes in the wall, A broken pane of glass, small highlights gleaming, catching something metallic on the shining floor, little dots everywhere suggesting space. And in this room where nothing happens all is silent, except

2004-01-31T10:31:00.000-08:00

Need A ghazal by Tree Bernstein and Randy Roark The goatherd rests on his staff, ears glowing translucent backlit by the setting sun, his black and white goats trembling pink in the powdered light. With the next breath the light changes, as the train elongates the landscape, pulling the now dimming desert into postcard views. Meanwhile, in the ornamented heart of the city astonishing silver

2004-01-26T12:25:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine reminded me that I've already written "First Poem," and that he prefers the original version. Here it is, from "The San Francisco Notebooks." 1-800-EN-DOLOR (for Kai) I. In this heart I have all that I have ever seen gathered like a snake, & there are dark cathedrals floating like children above my shoulders. I give myself over until the force that drives the flower

2004-01-25T00:12:00.000-08:00

First Poem (for Sarah) The order of all possible futures is raveling into this one, where there is no room for me— and the order of the past will be rearranged by whatever I do next—what will I do next is determined and invisible to only me but will make perfect sense when it arrives in another moment that will for a moment seem momentous, but will only become an unremembered nothing as

2004-01-24T23:58:00.000-08:00

2004-01-16T08:41:00.000-08:00

Seismograph Evening Descending through the telephone wires hung with palm fronds paper stiff and khaki like the corn husks of home past the Christmas lights strung on the Sikh temple and the optometrist's signs in Korean and the Armenian flags near the City Hall empty roads and 2 a.m. neon sleeping by the bowling alley while the shipyard horn blows its uniform shift calls This is just another

2004-01-15T09:43:00.000-08:00

Thirteen I went to an interesting event last night, because Morgan's girlfriend, Devorah, who is an excellent production designer, who was a punk-rock teenager in New York City in the 1980s got free tickets and dragged me along because Morgan was working. It was a special screening of the movie "Thirteen," followed by a panel talk by the director and cast (which includes Holly Hunter and Evan

2004-01-09T21:48:00.000-08:00

The galleys of my next book arrived today (The San Francisco Notebook, about Rilke and contradictory desires for solitude and company, for silence and communication, for doing and being), and instead of reviewing them, I chose instead to engage in a long dialogue with a photographer friend of mine (David Treff) about a review of a current exhibition of the photographs of Diane Arbus in today's (

2004-01-08T23:11:00.000-08:00

Glow A Ghazal by Randy Roark and Tree Bernstein Her creamy glow like small suns incised into the surface of a pearl—mottled purple or umber on the outside, pink and furled on the Inside, like the entrance into a woman’s body, like a waistcoat’s velvet edge, so pure it emits radiance, like a lynx’s eye Caught in moonlight. The moment is sensed more than seen, the flash of recognition stored

2004-01-07T11:01:00.000-08:00

Respect Your Elders I can't help noticing that Randy is posting three times as much material as Katie and I combined, and he's retired. And it's all good, too. So, in a vain attempt to keep up, I'm going to post this little rant from my other blog. Sorry for all you who have to read this twice, but at least it makes the other stuff here look even better. Collision Course with Destiny Spam is

2004-01-04T07:34:00.000-08:00

The Complete Story of My Trip to Amsterdam The vacation was very powerful and it's still settling for me a little bit. I took an overnight flight and I got in at 9:30 in the morning, took a train into Amsterdam, where you're immediately confronted by a bunch of drug addicts in the worst shape I've ever seen--one young woman had open sores all over her face--looking for money from the newbies.

2004-01-01T13:32:00.000-08:00

First Ghazal of the New Year Roses by Tree Bernstein & Randy Roark The room is filled with roses, red red roses. Blooms crowd the tables of the restaurant, a blood red bud atop the ketchup bottle. The waitress Smiles with blooming red lips. The counter clerk takes change behind crimson lenses. Roses float in my soup, My spoon is a long-stemmed beauty Of liquid smoothness. The scarlet

2003-12-08T17:03:00.000-08:00

Child (a ghazal for Lucia Joyce)--Tree Bernstein & Randy Roark, 8 December 2003 She was the light bringer, the wonder child, the rainbow girl, a temptress driven to fury, who separated the colors of the sky With a mind as clear as lightning, sad wastrel with a crooked eye who magically danced in our wake, a difficult, dramatic waif. How quickly that evanescence faded as she grew into a dark,

2003-11-23T11:51:00.000-08:00

Last December, I "retired" from writing poetry, and I haven't written an original poem since (other than collaborations), but on Halloween of this year I went alone to see a remarkable exhibit at the Denver Art Museum called "From El Greco to Picasso," on tour from the Philips Museum, the first American modern art collection (begun in the early twenties). Besides every painting being beautiful,

2003-11-22T11:23:00.000-08:00

The latest ghazal from Tree and me. Vitae Personnel information short form: Completing this form gives us a greater understanding of your background and interests. Together With your curriculum vitae/resume we will be able to suggest potential oppportunies for you at LCC. Why did you lower your voice when you said "I love you"? You are easier to understand when you leave the room and I

2003-11-17T13:08:00.000-08:00

Four New Poems by Katie Bowler, Randy Roark, and Michael Taft And Then I hug the growling bear cub to me and lick the side of his muzzle over and over until he calms down; his fur smells good and feels funny on my tongue like the story of this side of the only possible universe with its necessary dangers, the worst of which we survived to be here at all. Everything felt hot like another

2003-11-16T12:30:00.000-08:00

The latest ghazal with Tree. Ark Without an accurate map of the sand island, the weather as bad as it could be, we barely survived winter's five months of cold, and then Spring's run-off from the river swallowed what was left, the desperation of the voyage unalterably fixed as if from above, we Looked to alternative energies, drawing on ancient runes, and astrological conjunctions, animal

2003-11-10T17:20:00.000-08:00

The latest ghazal by Tree Bernstein and Randy Roark River (for Rick McMonagle) How can I describe my river to you? It sings when the sun is in its heart. In the zero days it’s a shadow, rumbling like A dream. In spring its runs along the weeping cliffs, a golden zigzag that empties in the blue of Lake Tahoe under a crowd of stars, In winter, traced along its edge, a lacy selvedge brought on

2003-11-03T21:30:00.000-08:00

Tonight I was asked to read at the 16th anniversary reading at Penny Lane in Boulder, Colorado, because I was one of the featured readers (with Jack Collom) at the second reading in the series, so many, well, 16 years ago. Anyway, I chose to read the first poem from a series that I'm working on based on the relationship of waking life to dreams, called Night Logic I am as if taking dictation

2003-10-26T14:39:00.000-08:00

Opening for a Novel "A blunder - apparently merest chance - reveals an unsuspected world and the individual is drawn into a relationship with forces that are not rightly understood." I've always thought this Joseph Campbell quote was funny, mainly because of the "not rightly understood" part. Picture the line spoken by Gomer Pyle: "I don't rightly understand these forces, Ma'am." I guess I can't

2003-10-26T05:26:00.000-08:00

When an artist friend of mine (Tree Bernstein) turned 50, she divorced her husband of nearly 20 years, sold her house and everything in it, and went to live on Bali. (She designed and published my book "one night" and included me in her collections "A Poet's Alphabet" and "Views.") She lasted there the better part of a year before she moved to Thailand, where she lives now. Shortly after she

2003-10-25T20:40:00.000-07:00

It's funny to see myself reflected back from someone else's eyes. Yes, I would always rather do something new--that's pretty sharp on Katie's part. I don't really follow the nuking discussion. I will say this, I can't ever imagine nuking anything someone else writes, but am totally into anyone else nuking anything by me OR themselves. Can we overrule a nuke? Can I revise something I've written?

2003-10-24T15:59:00.000-07:00

Go Ahead and Be Obnoxious The point is to provide a safe container. We are all participating in something here and I think it's nice to know that if you decide to post easy instructions for building nuclear weapons, I have the right to unpost them. In other words, I'm not really talking about editing individual words or lines. I'm saying that we three share this site together, and we are all in

2003-10-24T15:02:00.000-07:00

Ground Rules I suggest a unanimous model for this blog. That is, if any one of us doesn't like something it gets nuked. We all have to like it for it to remain. We all have equal editing powers to add and delete stuff. Let me know what you think. I added in the comment feature already, so readers can give their feedback. Remember that none of us need to use that feature. Just make a new blog

2003-10-24T12:49:00.000-07:00

First Test You guys see if you can make blog entries.