Friday, February 29, 2008

Analect 2.240x



29 February 2008. Gray morning, mist. Night of moans, oh lord, oh lord. Courtyard of dreams, rooms and doors, each one the same, no path, no sign, no key. Pero la carga viene--de Lucio Mansilla--un nublecito marrón, en la distancia. Ojos como lince, lo fije de múy lejos... Azulejos, azulejos.....

Courtyard in Spain, Morón de la Frontera, August 1965. Narrow winding streets, led by boy on bicycle to an arching gate--opening onto simple sky-covered patio, the wide Andalucian blue. A gentleman appears, white shirt, múy formal--this is Diego--we sit on small cane-woven village chairs, talk. Questions about Chet, Esteban--los amigos Americanos... His eyes, intelligent, reserved...todo eso por el cante...holding all for song...

Ansonini, Joselero, la Fernanda...

The key--acompañamiento, always a response. La alma viene, siempre viene, desde dientro...

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Analect 2.239x



28 February 2008. Golden light subsumes the 7-eleven--that moment, early spring. Narrow girl in black tights, shades, loping across parking lot, climbs into tiny late-model Honda, swinging wide onto Solano. Expansive gray puff of cigarette visible through glass. Freedom, an ancient idea. Like Hart Crane, his window over Brooklyn, or Roebling before him--the pirate's glass--Columbia Heights, spyglass onto the East River, progress noted: each bolt, each cable end, attached and fastened, iron swing, chastened stone...

Gowanus, Red Hook, the Jersey Shore...

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Analect 2.238x



27 February 2008. Web of clouds from west, intermixed with blue. Nicola this morning, darting across kitchen floor, stopping, looking up. "You're the man..." But wait, she never said a word, all by feline implication--feminine, that is, the tilt of a head, a lifted brow. "Breakfast would be good." Folded bag top with giant paper clamp, some newfangled plastic sheeting, opens to miles of kibble--Science Diet--only the best.

A white table cloth, the Biltmore Hotel, 1960 or so. Clothing Show. Clothiers. Rooms as booths, individual brands--trying to recall the names, their mercantile reality. Short sleeve suits, yes, with Nehru collars, gabardine and plaid. The Ernst tie. Stacy Adams, long narrow leather foot sleeves, intricately worked, each stitch a resolute advertisement of the individual self. Long ago. Sixth Street and Spring, the park, warm mornings with LA light, a pigeon or two, wheeling, wheeling...

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Analect 2.237x



27 February 2009. Clean-washed sun, Canada Dry--the truck, that is. Large and white, with single black wheel. Asian man in gray-green suit reaching up to check the lock, his cohort, similarly dressed, swinging into cab. Disappearing into thin air--no mean feat (for a Leviathan). Like last night--Ung's gray wash, separate strokes merging at top, open below, revealing warm tan of underlying board. Three small holes to left--from a former life. Or the two smudgy footprints on long horizontal--Berta--writing on the world. Then, Sabina, kneeling on floor, intently folding her blue-lined sheet--an homage, "this changed my life," small boat on the open sea, charting a course for miracles--a vision, even, shared, it seems by no one else. America to the old world. Irish shore, the hull alone...sailor lost in place unknown...

A bird, a prayer...



(for Hojin)

Friday, February 22, 2008

Analect 2.236x



22 February 2008. Same Day Service in pouring rain, orange and pale blue-green, holding their own against the gray, reflected even in darker windows alongside. Red Toyota pickup with long roll of black roofing felt, bungeed up over the cab. Precarious. Tiny birds against southern sky--two by two, shapes so characteristic, so invisible.

Sitting with Jeremy at white studio table, late afternoon. In the old Chinese way--album leaves and hand scrolls under warm incandescent light. My crusts of worn cardboard--skeins of washy color, deep and bland. A figure or two, in line of brush, picked out like the emperor Sung Hui-tsung, his narrow branch arching towards the sky, edges heightened here and there with even finer lines.

For birds, they always began with the eye...

A keening...

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Analect 2.235x



21 February 2008. Lumpy gray clouds across entire sky, nicely filtered
light. Single figure in plaid shirt crossing 7-eleven lot, brisk, hands in
pockets, glancing toward the illuminated interior. Earlier: Javed, night
shift. Sleepy eyes, mass of graying hair--Pakistan--as always, small
styrofoam cup, "one hundred nineteen dollars," the sounds softly elongated, with a slight smile to himself, waiting patiently while I fish out the change. The change--could be almost anything, out of nowhere even. The infrastructure of Mumbai, for example, a zigzag of railroad lines, crisscrossing steel--chemin de fer--still from early Satyajit Ray, The World of Apu, two small children nestled in high grass at the edge of a vast field, expanse of India left, right and above, until somewhere, in the distance, the first sound of a train...

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Analect 2.234x



19 February 2008. Rainy approach over misty gray-green bay, colors lost in whispy clouds, dark and wet, all rooftops and ponds. A navy ship--squared off jaw--transport matériel--now small below...with ducks afloat on rippled tones of brown... Private jet pulled to side of glistening runway, figure emerges in trousers and shirt--business class--pausing on tarmac at end of stairs, his arms raised, stretching...

Fleeting sound of Spanish voice, young woman on bench, and a red-head, also young, with plastic bag from Berkeley Bowl, nibbling, healthy, red-tipped pen for notes in the margins of some elaborate stapled text--already filled with her small dark hand...

Jorge Cafrune, on the horse, retracing the steps of la Patria--two figures in a truck--a camioneta--19 years old, hired by Videla, or someone close. Their fervor, no doubt--and their aim. "Qué mueran los salvages unitarios..." Cries unending...

But also the songs...

Friday, February 15, 2008

Analect 2.233x



15 February 2008. New year: O's and infinity. Sparkly sun, mirrored for a moment on roofer's truck glass. Door swings open as figure in work boots and brown paper bag swings his legs aboard, 7-eleven. Sound of engine, silent blast of gray exhaust... Within: sound in back just now, second phone. "Hi, Melvyn, can you call me back?" Leonard's book, from years ago--Returning Your Call--his wry and poignant insights, increasing with age--the years a great underwriter of sadness--no, just melancholy, that feeling from the very edge of the path, as the horses sweep by--or on the sand, mid-September, crowds gone, each ocean wave alone...

Early Snow on the River, Southern T'ang, the fisher king...

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Analect 2.232x



14 February 2008. Hole in the sky where the pine tree once stood--narrow pinnacle shooting into the heavens. Orion again. This morning: cold and very clear. Manager Mimi in Starbucks, her appealingly braided hair pulled up on either side, like Virginia or the Carolinas from an earlier age--leaning over the dark melamine counter with its industrially recessed holes, cleaning and polishing. Smiling.

In front now, warm carmine eggplant vest--baseball cap tucked low and a few whisps of grayish-white hair, Lee at work as well, salvaging, something from the bin, god knows what, a plus in the universe. Pulse, the rhythm of conviction. As with Emily, from the morning class, who asks me brightly, "What are you giving your wife for Valentine's Day?" The question itself--a world taken for granted. "Well, yesterday she read me the saddest poem I've ever heard." Quizzical look. "I listened..."

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Analects 2.231x



13 February. Gray dawn light. Plants gathered in small jungle of pots under the eves--the tree cutters come today--Monterey pine. Groby Great Tree, of recent memory--Ford Maddox Ford, Parade's End, just after the First World War--Tietjens, the later son, unexpected inheritance...responsibility. Worlds revolving, colliding even. Velikovsky careens off the Mecon's wall of sound--no, more a nasty garage-band twist, set up in some Soho dive--Cockney, that is, or the Midlands--where the limitations of accent run thick, a social bridle and bit in every waiting mouth...

But it's gray outside, the white van waits patiently for owner's return, or cell-phone girl in black and pink, purse and bag, hair damp from shower, thumbing a paper on dark green recyling can lid. Hope of song, in an unexpected place. Even again: unexpected.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Analect 2.230x



12 February 2008. Sparkling sun, early spring. Puff of white smoke against pale blue sky. The older neighbor couple lumber by--a Mexican shirt and a blue smock, holding hands. Narrow figure emerges from 7-eleven , white hair, dark clothes, graceful stoop, opening door of dark red car. Woman with leopard-skin shawl...

Song with many O's--feeling follows sound. The pleasure of... Smallish gray squares, painted with infinite slowness, a wainscot room. Who are we? Frayed wire on white wall--abraded--and a camel/ship vision. Desert door. Words for drawings: fast, free, legal...incommensurate with gesture, sense of touch. A sly but serious way of knowing. A path. Treacherous reward...

Monday, February 11, 2008

Analect 2.229x



11 February. Gentle sunlight at dawn, the world store is opening a little earlier these days. Almost daylight walking down the steps, pool again. "The water is 77 degrees, but we're open.."

Stories and songs. A small settlement on the edge of the Pampa, Provincia de Santa Fe. Monje--the name abrupt, almost blunt, a noun--imported, plunked down in the middle of a vast field. Ganado, potro, ternero--bombachas on a certain señor who will ride his horse to the local cafe, spend the evening with friends--algo de vino--climb back on in the moonlight--un poco emborrachao--lean forward, half-asleep, and wake up in front of his home...

En frente de su casa. La toldería de los Ranqueles. An Indian man rides standing, upright on his horse's back, jumping off at full gallop, jumping back on...

We sit at a small table in the ark of a large white room, soaring. Cuentos, cantos, historia... "Soy parte Guarani--de mi Mamá." Ojos negros, vivos. "De nuevo en los tuyos..."


(para Laura)

Friday, February 08, 2008

Analect 2.228x



8 February 2008. Foggy morning, winding through back streets to Happy Cleaners, double yellow apparitions in the mist--an oncoming car. Oncoming car, fleetingly, in the mist, as in posted video on life of Jorge Cafrune--a set of stills, in black and white...manhood, boyhood, youth. Strong face with mop of hair and wide beard, dark heavy-browed eyes, like some kind of landlocked pirate of the interior. Jujuy--far to the northwest: Francisco de Argañaraz y Murguía, who erects a small settlement in 1593, fighting the Calchaquíes and Omaguacas for what is of course their own land. Later, all becomes song: "En las sendas de Tapí...."

Wan's face, ni hao ma, smiling. I wish her a good new year--gung hay fat choi--as she reaches just below the counter, brings out an orange, offers it to me with both hands. A time of gifts, blessings, good wishes. As the night before, The Great China-- up dingy stairs and backroom paraphernalia, smiling, to a brightly lit upstairs room, filling again with smiling faces. Platters arrive, the table is suddenly overflowing. Hueying, smiling, holding a narrow bottle of China wine, smiling, pouring, in delight...

Thursday, February 07, 2008

Analect 2.227x



7 February 2008. Calm sun, touch of haze. Hazaña, late last night. Estevan Echevería--El Matadero. Founding stories as history--or history as a founding story. Matasiete. "Qué mueran los salvages unitarios." Remnants of faith, reapplied--the vicious blade. Celebration of--pure strength--to crush with gusto. Lo peor, todo lo peor...

Al justo aquel por piadoso y sincero,
la Humanidad lo clavó de un madero...

Russian-ness as well. Alexander Skidan, late afternoon. Jumpy hair, taut face, narrow, expressive mouth with flashing momentary smiles inserted into a stream of densely compelling analytic glossalalia. His own words-- "Poetry the only free space." "Lacan, ectoplasm, whose center is e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e." "Very big and very crucial change." "The word as such is useless and ineffective."

Uglich.

Time of troubles. And yet, also hidden within, manifest in flashes, a great hope--like the rumpled surface of a frozen Siberian lake--or the Aral Sea, a wrangly and decrepit motorbike three-wheeler, rough boards and the Pleististocene rock weight of a Central Asian fisherman. The winds, the endless plain, the steppe...

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Analect 2.226x


5 February 2008. Sun, maybe even a warm afternoon? Coffee glass spills everywhere on stove, phone missing somewhere, insistent woman in background now with unnecessarily detailed queries on electronic transmission. Voting day--the poll room door is closed. Pharmacy shut till nine. Etc.

But in the course of things...

Nathaniel's four paintings, arrayed on the wall. One suggestive, after Courbet, another idyllic--"figures in a dream." Another from the past, remembered with help of snapshot, and the last a row of abstract trees on wavy grain of clear plywood--perhaps the most naked of all. Four ways of telling, four moods, four kinds of experience, variety, belief, even. Engaging, the looking. "I like to see the paintings up close." Until something--everything--comes into focus...

Note from Dick, serious, but on the mend. Later, one from Kit, read late in the evening, after class.

Our animals, asleep in the rain...

Sunday, February 03, 2008

Analect 2.225x



3 February 2008. Gray cloud mass with tiny plane--fuselage and wings, ghost of Werner von Braun. Yellow pulse of sun, wishing to push through, two flap-wing swallows lead the way.

Las parejas. Two by two. The Honda coupes, for example, on a quiet Sunday lot. One black, the other deep maroon. Patient. Couples walking--side by side--mittens and ear muffs on this brightened day...

Rain and the past. Layers of wet mulch under dripping pear limbs. Alyosha's hide-away. His leonine form also in the wet, moored in slumber along back wall of house. "He wants to." What other response? This being his wish...

Friday, February 01, 2008

Analect 2.224x



1 February 2008. Gentle winter sun, after days of rain. Golden light from eastern hills. A white van zips up the slope--El Cerrito Electric. A line of gray Hondas follow. Morning patience of each buddhist chauffeur. Just in front: a young man with desultory walk, face hidden in gray folds of cotton--smiling to himself. A story, perhaps--or something recalled. Do the young remember? Wajda's film--at 81--Katyń. Another vision from the east. Byelorussian woods. Engraved on each conscience--the names--matka, ojciec, brat. Stack of rough bunks, heavy timbers, four high in a darkened room. The weight of time. Pokolenie, Popiół i Diament. Kanał. In the words, the fields, in each living soul...