Hey, K---I remember this! Had you sent it to petc before, p'raps in earlier
form?
I especially like the last half, and think you've made a lexical discovery
with the first 3 lines of it, given below. If you consider 'swallows' as a
verb, then the other 2 lines make digestive sense! [if this was your
intent, well, I am a female and therefore tend to 'hear' and 'read'
literally, often even in poetry, unfortunately. Below's the part I esp
like:
*swallows of all birds*
*sound most like the insects*
*in their stomachs.*
"I am not harmonic alone,
I borrow the tremors of poplars & wasps,
footprints & wings―
and at the trainstation, the early afternoon
turning late, the stale-dark smell of citrus
is tickling my will to sing."
_______[Wait a minute, Kasper-----I've been assuming that the 'I' here is a
bird with a bird girlfriend? If not, I'd be turned off, if I were you,
envisioning a human female, as having an antennae with fingertips, and
sitting on the roof!!!!!]______
"I keep thinking of you on that roof,
an antenna with fingertips in the Babel-bound wind
& listening."
Hon. joodles
2008/9/18 kasper salonen <[log in to unmask]>
> <<where's your latest? [Poem, that is...].>>
>
> well since you ask, here for now:
> http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfr8jjpv_76g6m2shxj&hl=en
> and soon to be found between a front & back cover. eh, as soon as soon can
> be with the crowd I'm working with on this anthology/collection.
> more news as desperation makes way for tittery glee.
>
> KS
>
> 2008/9/18 Judy Prince <[log in to unmask]>
>
> > K, what a heartening, enjoyable to read, and generous assessment of the
> > snap! If it did all the things you said, then I've more than achieved my
> > aims.
> > Best, and where's your latest? [Poem, that is...]. <g>
> >
> > Judy
> >
> > 2008/9/17 kasper salonen <[log in to unmask]>
> >
> > > I'm impressed by the tone of the language, and how vivid the milieu is,
> > and
> > > how effective the sparse punctuation. the choice of words especially is
> > > effective in such an offhand way, it's enjoyable to read. and see.
> > > the repetition makes this approach the minorly epic, maybe Ginsberg,
> but
> > > the
> > > effect is nicely muted by the overall minimalism, or 'imagism' maybe.
> > > thanks
> > > a lot Judy.
> > >
> > > KS
> > >
> > > 2008/9/17 Judy Prince <[log in to unmask]>
> > >
> > > > It's Wednesday, so this is a snap, I suppose. It's actually the only
> > > Real
> > > > Snap I've done on petc. The others [early on] were misnamed 'snap',
> > and
> > > > then I no longer 'snapped' but sent in poems.
> > > >
> > > > BEAUTY OF PRIVILEGE
> > > >
> > > > this time I belong
> > > >
> > > > a tiny home that someone else dreamed
> > > > in your country
> > > > someone here modified
> > > > someone else built just down a bit
> > > > and across the street from Lafayette River
> > > >
> > > > one of those men knew the view I'd see
> > > > from my 19th c fainting couch
> > > > a sitting room furnished in charity shop finds
> > > > loved and passed along, like adopted children,
> > > > to those who loved and passed them along
> > > > how did they know what I'd see?
> > > >
> > > > my eyes need these 40-foot fuzzy pines
> > > > and a front garden of Russian olive trees---
> > > > the off-beat hearts of fuchsia in a green bush---
> > > > which owner of this home so hid and overgrown
> > > > knew what I'd see?
> > > >
> > > > the same one who planted a tall corn stalk
> > > > behind the tall flag pole---both so American--
> > > > the man who bumped out an office wall
> > > > for a huge mosaic shower room
> > > > how did he know I no longer
> > > > straddle a tub like a Degas nude?
> > > >
> > > > forty years ago, in Taipei, I lay
> > > > in a mosquito-netted bed
> > > > incense-coil on the floor
> > > > as 11 hammocks of workers
> > > > slept in the next room
> > > >
> > > > I, a wealthy American, it was thought,
> > > > could take their bedroom for a few days
> > > > I, the friend of the home owner
> > > > whose business downstairs they ran
> > > >
> > > > I bought a worker's simple cracked rice bowl
> > > > at noon next day
> > > > and began to starve
> > > >
> > > > found a room in a R&R hotel
> > > > dodged 8-inch cockroaches at night
> > > > listened to the gentle query
> > > > of a blind massage woman led upstairs
> > > > to the soldier's room next to mine
> > > >
> > > > no longer wanted as a tutor to the neighbours'
> > > > children, I toured the island as a guest of the
> > > > their grown son
> > > > days of motorcycle freedom
> > > > oxen-plowed fields of pineapple
> > > > fish farms, perilous suspension bridges
> > > > of rope, hand-woven linen clothing
> > > > and something he expected from me
> > > > but never got
> > > >
> > > > my paychecks found, boxed china dish tucked underfoot
> > > > I flew back to America
> > > > and the privilege of beauty again and again
> > > >
> > > > of loss again and again
> > > >
> > > > my former gardener says, after heart surgery
> > > > and now dialysis for life
> > > > "I am blessed! I'm alive!"
> > > >
> > > > he is my Privilege of Beauty
> > > > and the tiny kindergarteners loaded
> > > > with backpacks running across the street
> > > > while I weep
> > > > at the beauty of privilege
> > > >
> > > > all of it, all of them, my home
> > > >
> > > > ____________
> > > >
> > > > jbprince
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > a scoop of Lafayette River
> > > > in the cooling rain
> > > > on this rust-velvet fainting couch
> > > >
> > >
> >
>
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