Memory and Fog

The Dissolution of Fog

Figures in the fog loom larger with distance.
But the sharpness of edges goes softly away
Into the haze of memory where time
Works its changes inside the mind of memories

Following the narrative on which they're pasted;

With the loose glue of desire gradually replaced

By the less persistent bond of time and distance.
Slipping away it’s sloughed into a thicker haze
Of fading resolutions gradually morphing into
A new form whose clarity is ambiguously loose
In keeping with multiple possible outcomes:
Suspended in vapor til desire's distillation.

---- Big Frank Dickinson

Mary Jo Bang (on desire)

Big Frank has been reading a very good American poet: Mary Jo Bang. She has a poem below on desire. As Paul Simon wrote "The open palm of desire/ wants everything/ wants everything". The way it gets it is through, as Bang writes, "the hard wire argument given to the mind's unstoppable mouth." This is what Big Frank calls The Voice. Bang's title, "Definitely", hits the assurance with which the argument is presented. It comes from her most recent collection of poetry, Elegy, written after the death of her only son from an overdose of prescription drugs. It was the winner of the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry.

Definitely

What is desire
But the hardwire argument given
To the mind's unstoppable mouth.

Inside the braincase, it's I
Want that fills every blank.
And then the hand
Reaches for the pleasure

The plastic snake offers. Someone says, Yes,
It will all be fine in some future soon.
Definitely. I've conjured a body

In the chair before me. Be yourself, I tell it.
Here memory makes you
Unchangeable: that shirt, those summer pants.

That beautiful face.
That tragic beautiful mind.
That mind's ravenous mouth

That told you, This isn't poison
At all but just what the machine needs. And then,
The mouth closes on its hunger.

The heart stops.

---- Mary Jo Bang

Thanksgiving Indeed

Thanksgiving in Denver was indeed an occasion for giving thanks. Thanks that a good portion Big Frank's family was able to come together. It was a pivotal time for Big Frank's brother Dan, who is facing some difficult decision with his myeloma treatment. You can visit his blog to see the particulars of the choice that he has to make. The family could not give him the answers, but we did give him our love and our thanks for his being such an important part of all of our lives.

Susan cooked up a terrific Thanksgiving meal, an amazing spread of dishes that everyone enjoyed thoroughly. Dan and Susan invited a number of friends and in total there were 14 sitting down to share the Thanksgiving feast. Dan said a touching prayer that Big Frank wishes he could repeat, but faulty memory won't allow it. Family and friends sharing a meal and talk way into the evening - this is something that Big Frank gives thanks for. Dan and Susan: Thank You!

Wheels up 6:00 am

Big Frank is heading out for Thanksgiving. He's going to Denver to stay with his brother Dan and his family. His daughter, Gina, is coming from Oregon. His mother and step-father are coming from North Dakota. So, all-in-all a kind of mini family reunion. That's what Thanksgiving is all about.

Here's a couple of quotations that Big Frank will be mulling over as he flies. He's been reading the two volumes of Joseph Brodsky's essays: "Less Than One" and "On Greaf and Reason". These are the two quotations that Brodsky puts at the beginning of these books, taken from two of Brodsky's favorite poets:

"Blessed be all metrical rules that forbid automatic responses,

force us to have second thoughts, free from the fetters of Self."

---- W. H. Auden

"And the heart doesn't die when one thinks it should."

---- Czeslaw Milosz

Inner Experience

Do you talk to yourself? Most people do - even Big Frank. When that talk is internal it is called "inner speech". This phenomenon is pretty much a mystery. It is not known just how much time people spend doing this, or the form that this inner speech takes. Is this the way that thoughts are discovered and expressed to ourselves; or do we have the thought first and then express it - try it out, as it were, to ourselves afterwards? These are some of the questions that are being studied. Two investigators that are working on this are Russell Hurelburt in psychology and Eric Schwitzgebel in philosophy. In fact, they have just published a book - Describing Inner Experience -on their ingenious research based on Descriptive Experience Sampling, where they beeped a woman, Melanie, who then reported what her inner experience was when she was beeped. You can read the first chapter here, and actually read the transcripts of Melanie's descriptions of her inner experiences here.

The routine ran something like this; at random intervals Melanie would get beeped. At that moment she would jot down the inner experience that she was undergoing. Then, within 24 hours, Schwitzgebel and Hurelburt conduct a thorough interview on the inner experiences that she had undergown that day. It turns out that, despite peoples' views that such experiences are largely carried via an inner voice commenting on themselves and the world , that; many people have few words in their thoughts. Such "thoughts" are often a variation of images or bodily sensations.

Try this experiment on yourself. Set your own beeper and then write down what inner experience you were in when it sounded. Of course, then you will face the same problem that these investigators face - not only categorizing what was going on (thought or words; image or feeling; feeling or thought: or pure bodily sensation) but also the issue of whether your report is accurate. Are you capable of knowing what it is that you are experiencing?

The Wisdom of Pascal

Blaise Pascal could lay it down, and lay it down he did systematically (seemingly anyway), in his great book of French prose, and uncommon wisdom: Pensées. Pascal was a great user of reason in his thoughts about the limits of reason.

Here are a few excerpts that Big Frank offers for reflection:

"Let each of us examine his thoughts; he will find them wholly concerned with the past or the future. We almost never think of the present, and if we do think of it, it is only to see what light it throws on our plans for the future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means, the future alone our end. Thus we never actually live, but hope to live, and since we are always planning how to be happy, it is inevitable that we should never be so."

"Respect means; put yourself out. That may look pointless, but it is quite right, because it amounts to saying: I should certainly put myself out if you needed it, because I do so when you do not; besides, respect serves to distinguish the great. If respect meant sitting in an armchair we should be showing everyone respect and then there would be no way of marking distinction, but we make the distinction quite clear by putting ourselves out."

"All our reasoning comes down to surrending to our feeling. But fancy is like and also unlike feeling, so that we cannot distinguish between these two opposites. One person says that my feeling is mere fancy, another that his fancy is feeling. We should have a rule, Reason is available but can be bent in any direction. And so there is no rule."

"The heart has its reasons, of which reason knows nothing"

Night Visitors

Hello Old Friend

Ulterior urges were settling in for the night,
in stacks of three or four, unbidden but immediately,
surprisingly welcomed, and the conversation actually turned
out to be entertaining but repetitive, like a chipped tooth
rediscovered at night by the tongue circling round the jag
again and again, and that massage was continuing,
but not therapeutic or even considered pleasing
not unlike the snugness of a loose button.
"We can pick this up at a different time"- was not said; but eventually
it might as well have been, for they settled right in like background noise,

falling into sleepless crevices right next to early morning dreams.

---- Big Frank Dickinson

Dream Compounds

Dream is such a powerful word. It is so rich that is has only been superficially tapped to show its breadth of meaning and feeling. Its range becomes more apparent when it is combined in new compound words. They all make sense – in that way that dreams do.

Dreamline

Dreamache, dreamhand,
Dreamcape, dreamslam,
Dreammoat, dreamhole
Dreamsigh, dreamfly,
Dreamisle, dreammusk,
Dreamkeg, dreamluck,
Dreampath, dreamsmack,
Dreampeek, dreampole,
Dreamquake, dreamrole,
Dreamvow, dreamsake,
Dreamclam, dreamplan,
Dreamworn, dreamtorn.

---- Big Frank Dickinson

Better

Atul Gawande has written a wise book that has lessons on how to be better that apply beyond medicine. Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance offers Gawande’s keen insight on how medicine can be better without having to rely on scientific breakthroughs or on technological innovations. Rather he gives advice on performance in diligence, doing right and ingenuity. In his section on diligence he demonstrates how virtue when applied to such simple routines as washing hands can make the difference in controlling antibiotic resistant bacteria. He also shows how strict adherence to protocol is what will determine whether polio, like small pox before it, can be eradicated completely. Diligence in collecting data and examining it to improve performance is what has significantly lowered mortality rates among the wounded in battle.

The next section of the book is equally good: the ethics of examining undressed patients, doctors in the death chamber and when is further treatment the wrong choice. In the final section he examines the different success rates of various medical centers and offers some insights on why the best are the best. Finally, in the afterward of the book Gawande shares some remarkable advice on how to become what he terms a positive deviant. Here’s his advice:
1. “Ask unscripted questions.” If you do this you will discover the unexpected. This applies both to people that you interact with as part of your job, and those you work with.
2. “Don’t complain.” As Gawande says, we are all tempted to take this route – we all have something that we are uhappy about. However, as he wisely puts it: “It’s boring, it doesn’t solve anything, and it will get you down.”
3. “Count something.” Numbers are revealing. However, they can also be boring, so his advice is to count something that is interesting to you. If you do, you will find something interesting.
4. “Write something.” In writing you step back and think about a problem. It forces upon you a certain amount of thoughtfulness. It can also put you in touch with a community of others thinking about what you write.
5. “Change.” He advises to be an early adopter of change. Avoid being a skeptic who resists changing anything. If you seek out the inadequacies of what you do you will find ample room for change. Look for something new to try.

It seems to Big Frank that these five pieces of advice apply far beyond the field of medicine. With all the self-help books out there, all the leadership books out there, and all the books on how to improve business/management/sales etc. etc. these five seem to have vast promise.

Bloggers Watching Bloggers

There are people out there in cyberspace - bloggers - that attract others who read them, but don't actually know the bloggers. Nonetheless bloggers do follow other bloggers' postings and from them make certain judgements about them. Here are couple of bloggers who have done that in the "literary" blogging sphere. Big Frank has been keeping a pretty low profile, and so (as of yet) no blogger has stereotyped him in three sentences or less.

I think the HTML GIANT may have started this. Take a look at his takes on some bloggers. Then pshares picked it up and did a few of its own. This could spread: who is watching - following whom and what do they have to say about it? Big Frank is all over this - stay tuned for his take.

Gratitude

Big Frank awoke this morning, this Friday morning, with thoughts of thanks. There is so much to be thankful for and from this sense of gratitude hope is born. From this happiness comes the sense that "it will turn out to have been all right" - all right for family, all right for friends, and all right for Big Frank. Below is a poem by David Ray that captures this well via his memory of the words of Robert Frost.

Thanks, Robert Frost

Do you have hope for the future?
someone asked Robert Frost, toward the end.
Yes, and even for the past, he replied,
that it will turn out to have been all right
for what it was, something we can accept,
mistakes made by the selves we had to be,
not able to be, perhaps, what we wished,
or what looking back half the time it seems
we could so easily have been, or ought...
The future, yes, and even for the past,
that it will become something we can bear.
And I too, and my children, so I hope,
will recall as not too heavy the tug
of those albatrosses I sadly placed
upon their tender necks. Hope for the past,
yes, old Frost, your words provide that courage,
and it brings strange peace that itself passes
into past, easier to bear because
you said it, rather casually, as snow
went on falling in Vermont years ago.

---- David Ray

In Your Dreams

Supporting Role

Dream me away; give me a part
in your nightland drama, strange friend,
at your side, and fading out.
Cast me protean and insubstantial.

Dream-walker, leaving all
accountability, actuality, and singularity:
pirated edition of myself in the shadows
of your private theatrical show.

Engulf me in your clouds and cushion
my memory from any recollection
of this grainy supporting role, where
I play both the stand-in and the lead.

I will share your night-time escapades;
in Vienna, Bangkok or Rome;
descending the back-alley staircase
at night with a train shudder soundtrack.

And when you turn in the dark, not understanding,
it will be I who asks the question, the answer to which
eludes you til dawn, when it will awake
from this fading dream in mine.

---- Big Frank Dickinson

Great Melodic Jazz

Big Frank has a few recommendations for you jazz lovers. He is going to bundle this into a group of musicians/bands that to seem to fit together to Big Frank. Big Frank hesitates to categorize them under easy listening or soft jazz, rather let's call them smooth, lyrical, unabrasive, and tight without taking away from the rigors of the jazz medium. This is the kind of music that you can put on towards evening when you are winding down from a tough day and not have to worry about it jarring your nerves, or pushing you out of your evening funk. This is not sentimental, nor does it eschew solo stand outs by the musicians, but by and large the bands keep lid on their stretchings out. All three of these albums are real keepers: tunes that you will turn to again and again. This is music entering the realm of meditation, but not in any way new age music.

The Tord Gustavsen Trio: The Ground

This Norwegian Trio is amazing. Gustavsen plays piano in this classic jazz trio of piano, bass, and drums. The melodies in all cases are lyrical, but not sentimental in any way. Listen and feel the stress evaporate - a wonderful album.

Brian Blade & The Fellowship Band: Season of Changes

Brian Blade is a great drummer. This mix of songs is emotionally evocative; fairly slow but very full- in all senses of the word. Kurt Rosenwinkel plays guitar in this six-piece band. Heres' a place you can hear one of the better cuts: Stoner Hill.

Charlie Haden: Nocturne

Here is Charlie Haden's tribute to Cuban jazz ballads. He is assisted by Gonzalo Rubalcaba on piano, Pat Methany on guitar, along with, among others, Joe Lovano and David Sanchez on tenor sax. This is an album for the ages. Certainly one that Big Frank plays over and over. It will sooth the most jangled of nerves and is capable of inducing a calm most welcoming: absolutely beautiful music in every way. Here's the first cut off the album En la Orilla del Mundo (At the Edge of the World).

Valerio Magrelli

Big Frank has been reading "Nearsights" by Valerio Magrelli (translated from the Italian by Anthony Molino). You won't find much of his work available in English, but what there is well worth reading. Magrelli writes short poems. Many of his poems trace the birth of poems, and he appears to do much of his writing at night in his bed: "Under the sheets my roots of flesh/ lie entangled,/ only my head juts out". He uses sharp images, and reveals in his poetry the shifting climate of mind-body we all pass through in life. Here are a couple of his poems. Most of his poems are untitled.

I am what is missing

from the world I inhabit,

the One

I'll never meet.

Spinning, I coincide

with what I lack.

I am my own eclipse,

my absence, melancholy,

the geometrial object

I'll need forever to do without.

--- Valerio Magrelli

I've often imagined gazes

surviving the act of seeing

as if they were poles,

measured distanced, lances

in battle.

Then I think of a room

just abandoned

where similar traces remain

for a time suspended and intersecting

in the balance of their design

intact and overlapping, like

pick-up sticks.

---- Valerio Magrelli

John Ashbery - again

Big Frank is taken with Ashbery. This is a poet who has a definite bifurcated audience. Some write/talk about him as though he were a poet who was not playing according to the rules that they all understood underlay poetry - it's supposed to MEAN something. You should be able to read one of his poems and then say: well this poem was about X. You can't do that with Ashbery. Other's appreciate his poetry like they appreciate their lives. That is to say that his poems are experiences, just as your life is an experience. Take a snippet out of your life and capture the thoughts, emotions, memories, bits of conversation, surroundings, plans, echoes, etc. etc. and then sum it up and say what THAT means. Big Frank is not going to include the poems in their entirety - if you want to read some of those go here, or go back to a previous post with a full poem of his. Otherwise, here are a few great passages from his latest book, appropriately entitled: "Notes from the Air".

from Riddle Me

But lovers are like hermits or cats: They

Don't know when to come in, to stop

Breaking off twigs for dinner.

In the little station I waited for you
And shall, what with all the interest

I bear toward plans of yours and the future

Or stars it makes me thirsty

Just to go down on my knees looking

In the sawdust for joy.

from Finnish Rhapsody

The one who runs little, he who barely trips along

Knows how short the day is, how few the hours of light.

Distractions can't wrench him, preoccupations forcibly remove him

From the heap of things, the pile of this and that:

Tepid dreams and mostly worthless; lukewarm fancies, the majority of them unprofitable.

Yet it is from these that the light, from the ones present here that luminosity

Sifts and breaks, subsides and falls usunder.

from Seasonal

What does the lengthening season mean,

the halo round a single note?

Blunt words projected on a screen

are what we mean, not what we wrote.

Lou Reed

Big Frank has returned to Lou Reed. His (Big Franks's not Lou's) blogging buddy, Magne, lent him some of his music. Why did Big Frank neglect this music. The last CD of Lou's that Big Frank bought was his tribute to Andy Warhol entitled - "Songs for Drella". Drella was what Lou called Warhol - it's a combination of Dracula and Cinderella: go figure (whatever that means). Lou Reed is a one-of-a-kind musician. His lyrics come right out of the common speech of everyday life ( Delmore Schwartz encouraged him to write that way in the Reed early years.) But beyond that his songs - especially the later ones have a power an empathetic power that touches the listener. He has a unique way of singing where it sounds as though he talking directly to you; and his raucous guitar was light years ahead of his time. So - here are a couple of clips. Listen especially to Forever Changed with his old buddy from the Velvet Underground: John Cale - very powerful song, with the hypnotically repetitive piano rhythm of Cale and the haunting driving guitar of Reed. Only two of them, but what a full sound they generate! The Berlin tune is a more wistful Lou - nice song.

John Ashbery (in pieces)

Big Frank has been reading the poetry of John Ashbery. This is poetry that doesn't lend itself to themes, or (as Frost said of Stevens) bric-a-brac. This is poetry of a purer nature that can, if you allow it, wash over you like the waves of the ocean coming in and in: what does that mean? And what does it mean in connection with your thoughts of the last time you were in that ocean, and then the person with whom you were, or else not, and - don't forget about your towel and what's on it . . . back . . . on the beach. The beach of your youth? The beach as in skipping along in slow motion, or the beach as in this whale ain't going nowhere. OK, enough of that. Big Frank is not going to give entire poems but rather snippets, just a few favorite sections of John Ashbery poems - once you read them - you will have to have more (or else not).

from Grand Gallop

And now it is time to wait again.

Only waiting, the waiting: what fills up the time between?

It is another kind of wait, waiting for the wait to be ended.

Nothing takes up its fair share of time,

The wait is built into the things just coming into their own

Nothing is partially incomplete but the wait.

Invests everything like a climate.

What time of day is it?

Does anything matter?

Yes for you must wait to see what it is really like,

This event rounding the corner

Which will be unlike anything else and really

Cause no surprise: it's too ample.

from Worsening Situation

. . .

One day a man called while I was out
and left this message: "You got the whole thing wrong

From start to finish. Luckily there's still time.

To correct the situation, but you must act fast.

See me at your earliest convenience. And please

Tell no one of this. Much besides your life depends on it."

I thought nothing of it at the time. . . .

from A Man of Words

Those tangled versions of the truth are

Combed out the snarls ripped out

And spread around. Behind the mask

Is still a continental appreciation

Of what is fine, rarely appears and when it does is already

Dying on the breeze that brought to the threshold

Of speech. The story worn out from telling.

All diaries are alike, clear and cold, with

The outlook for continued cold. They are placed

Horizontal, parallel to the earth

Like the unencumbering dead. Just time to reread this

And post past slips fingers, wishing you were

there.

Aphorisms: Tired and Fresh

Big Frank has been thinking lately of aphorisms. They, briefly defined, are original thoughts expressed in a laconic style. They can be both strikingly original and (with the passage of time and use) hackneyed – in the latter case they have entered the world of the cliché and are emblematic of a lack of thought. The latter leave people’s mouths without passing through their heads; it is a kind of conditioned response. For example:

“What will be will be.”
“What goes around comes around.”
“To each his own.”
“There you go!”

Nobody has ever paused after reading or hearing any of these aphorisms because they are totally exhausted of meaning. Their true meaning is to actually stop any conversation or thought. They are punctuation marks – very large periods.

The mark of a fresh or original aphorism is that is leads to thought. It can provide a fresh insight. When you hear it, it allows you to look at yourself or life in a new way. Here are a few that Big Frank has found to have this effect.

“Things don’t change, but by and by our wishes change.”Proust
“We are never so happy or unhappy as we imagine.” Francois duc la Rochefoucauld
“Maturity consists in no longer being taken in by oneself.” Kajetan von Schlaggenberg
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble, it’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so… “ Mark Twain
"In the end one loves one's desire and not what is desired." Nietzsche
"Complete possession is proved only by giving. All you are unable to give possesses you." Andre Gide

So if anyone has any good thought-provoking aphorisms to share, Big Frank would like to hear from you. Similarly if you have any thought-terminating ones that you hear all too often then send them in also.

Symmetry

Big Frank has been thinking about symmetry lately. Not being a symmetrician or a bifurcationologist he admittedly is coming at this subject with less than, a whole lot less than, any expertise. Nonetheless, this is something that merits some thought. Take a look at yourself – go ahead, look down at your body. What do you see? OK, there are two legs, two arms, and if you look in the mirror a couple of eyes and a left side that pretty much matches the right side (we are not getting into small differences here – granted it’s not an exact match). Still if you split yourself down the middle (God forbid) you would have two pretty equal pieces. This is true right across the spectrum of the rest of your mammal, your animal, and your plant relatives - OK, the plants are pretty distant. Even when you look at the constituent parts – cells, molecules, atoms etc. And if we move up to a larger dimension we find it true there also – planets, stars, and galaxies. So why is this and what does it mean? Big Frank is not sure, but he’s on it.

Big Frank is not going to go into the mathematical symmetry (he pretty much stopped after algebra); however, in physics it has been generalized to mean invariance—that is, lack of any visible change—under any kind of transformation. In fact this has become a powerful tool in theoretical physics. Not surprisingly, one could state that practically all laws of nature originate in symmetries. In fact, this role inspired the Nobel laureate P.W. Anderson to write in his widely-read 1972 article More is Different that "it is only slightly overstating the case to say that physics is the study of symmetry."

And so, one might ask – certainly Big Frank does: what about in social interactions? Well, it turns out in fact people in healthy relationships do observe symmetry in their interaction, in a variety of contexts. You can find this is assessments of reciprocity, empathy, apology, dialog, respect, and justice. Symmetrical interactions send the message "we are all the same" while asymmetrical interactions send the message "I am special; better than you". Peer relationships are based on symmetry, power relationships are based on asymmetry. So, one might say to the extent that one prefers asymmetrical interactions, one sets up an imbalance. And we all know what happens when things are out of balance, don't we?

A Review of a Book of Reviews

Big Frank has been reading “Nonrequired Reading” by Wislawa Szymborska. This is a collection of book reviews that Szymborska wrote for the Polish newpaper, Gazeta Wyborcza. She admits in the beginning of this volume that she never really enjoyed the standard review formula: describing the nature of the book putting it into some larger context, and then, “give the reader to understand that it was better than some and worse than others.” As a result she gave herself free reign to adhere to that formula (at times), but more often to use the topic as an opportunity to spin off in whatever direction she desired. The result is a wonderful exploration with Szymborska as a guide of a wide range of books and an even wider range of topics.

A book on statistics lead her to a conclusion that Big Frank shares with her: “In her book she tries to portray a normal family in various real-life situations. Unfortunately, the Kowalski family feel statistically typical, which immediately turns them into abstractions, since individual ever feels typical. The book is easily digestible, but not particularly nourishing.”

A book on French humor lead Szymborska to wonder why there are no such categories of seriousness. “I think humor and seriousness are equally important, which is why I eagerly await the day when seriousness will get its cumuppance and start envying humor.

In a review of a book on Hatha Yoga Szymborska cannot help herself when the author, after leading her through some rather demanding contortions reveals that this is only one small step towards the ultimate goal: “losing their individual I in the Cosmos at large.” Szmborska counters with: “Here the skeptic stops to ask himself if this is really his business. Maybe just the opposite: he shoulnd’t lose himself, but simply live his life through in its human separateness with all the consequent difficulties? And as for loosing himself – there’s always time for that after death.”

And so it goes through books on Indian abductions, domestic birds, sick dogs, wallpapering your home, gladiators, vandals, etc. etc. In all cases, sometimes you learn something about the subject, and the book, but you always get Szymborska’s read – and that makes it all worthwhile. In the end, you won't be reading this book in order to choose which Polish book to read - it will be rather to enjoy a few hours with Wislawa Szymborsa.

The Voice

The Voice

The ulterior urge within uses
your voice in lobbying on it’s own behalf;
it tempts you to think it’s you

who is whispering confidentially
to your better interest with
the reasons of the moment.

The appealing seducer with inside knowledge,
an almost irrisitable combination of
weaknesses coupled with needs.

It plays to the crowd of wants, wandering
from one to another in search of
just one to push the Do button.

And the listener responds again with
your voice: now dubbed over both parts,
but neither of them are you.

It’s not really an equal battle; for
this desire has definitely acquired
a much more resourceful advocate,

who actually has pretty good reasons,
against the repressive policeman who
counters with variations of no, no, no.

The voice plays to a large audience
and knows intimately what the secret
weakness of each is. The policeman

has to win on all counts; the seducer only once.
This isn’t a democracy; any one want
can push the DO button – it only takes one.

---- Big Frank Dickinson

Westward Ho!

The Horizon

William Blake saw angels in his garden.
Nietzsche embraced a horse.
Sophocles reached for his cup;
Daniel Boone just kept moving west.

The ruts are still visible, irresistibly straight;
Those sunken cables stretching to the horizon,
Which itself lies long and lonely crosswise,
A landing pad of sorts for travelers.

Backlit at intervals; it celebrates transitions
And then hides itself in darkness waiting,
Waiting for light, and you - as you journey
Westward, always westward.

---- Big Frank Dickinson

A Poem by Ed Ochester

More new poetry that Big Frank is reading. This one's from Ed Ochester's new book entitled "Unreconstructed". A beautiful poem from beginning to end. The images are evocative, the rhythm somewhat hypnotic. Those windshield wipers . . . and the small lights. I've misplaced the title; so we'll have to use the first line for now.

[We Are All Driving to the House of God]

We are all driving to the house of god

in the dark. Yes, and the long lashes

of my windshield wipers brush the tears

from the curved glass: hush, hush,

deep into this night, and wonderful:

the prudent asleep in their tiny houses,

the sorrow of paperwork limp on their desks

and wonderful the hum and plash of rubber

on the wet roads and the distance

from the sleeping ego, that grackle

with its I, I, I, I.

Not the distance from ,but the traveling to

effortless as the car's glide

down the S-curve outside Appolo

over the rumbly steel waffle of the Kiski bridge

to the small lights of the empty town,

a single figure leaning on a column

at the one hotel. And the rain.
May we only ever be lonely

by choice, driving to a bubble of light

and to sleep, and in the morning

the strong rinsed sun on the floor,

on the table the dark iris

in the consolation of its old vase.

---- Ed Ochester

"Thoughts that go so far."

The following poem will stop you in your tracks. Robert Bly's poem resonantes with images of actions cutoff, incomplete . . . with no explanation of why: "Thoughts that go so far." A beautiful and frightful poem. As Rilke wrote: "Beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror."

Snowbanks North of the House

Those great sweeps of snow that stop suddenly six feet from
the house . . .
Thoughts that go so far.
The boy gets out of high school and reads no more books;
the son stops calling home.
The mother puts down her rolling pin and makes no more
bread.
And the wife looks at her husband one night at a party and
loves him no more.
The energy leaves the wine, and the minister falls leaving the
church.
It will not come closer-
the one inside moves back, and the hands touch nothing,
and are safe.

And the father grieves for his son, and will not leave the
room where the coffin stands;
he turns away from his wife, and she sleeps alone.

And the sea lifts and falls all night; the moon goes on
through the unattached heavens alone.
And the toe of the shoe pivots
in the dust. . . .
The man in the black coat turns, and goes back down the hill.
No one knows why he came, or why he turned away, and
did not climb the hill.

--- Robert Bly

New European Poets

Big Frank has been reading a wonderful collection of poetry: New European Poets. It includes 290 poets from every country in Europe. It also gives a good sampling of the broad scope of styles found in European poetry today: lyric, prose, political, historical, and surrealistic to mention just a few. It is not only testomony to the new poetry of Europe, but also to the great numbers of poetic translators working to bring us this. Here is a recent review of the book. And here are a few of Big Frank's favorites:

Lost Friends

Friends carried off by life

are the most difficult to appease, the most

tyrannical. barbarians of an unknown land,

they sip the poison of silence and they grow

beyond all limits in the distance, a blind eye

to our loneliness. And to think that we were

brothers in arms, that we dug up buried treasure

from the same islands, from the most

barren of books. How things turn out.

Could all have been in vain? It seemed

that we were destined for the same

songs, for a more certain kind of love,

Well, well. and we cannot even understand

what happened.

---Rui Pires Cabral (translated from the Portuguese by Alexis Levitin)

Dark Thoughts

I'm almost like that dark hallway

with a few framed photos

and lamps on the walls.

So many visitors have walked through me,

dark and light,

depending on the illumination.

---- Regina Derieva (translated from the Russian by Valzhyna Mort)

.

[Evenings, when the light dims]

Evenings, when the light dims

and I lie hidden in bed,

I gather outlines of ideas

that flow over the silence of my limbs.

It's here I must weave

thought's tapestry,

arrange my own strands

use myself to draw my own figure.

This isn't't work

but workmanship.

Of the page, then of the body.

To evoke thought's form,

measure and fit it.

I think of a tailor

who is his own fabric.

.

---- Valerio Magrelli (translated from the Italian by Anthony Molino)

"Barefoot in reality"

Big Frank opened his collected works of Wallace Stevens this morning and this is the poem that presented itself to him: “Large Red Man Reading”. Imagine a large red man lit by the setting sun starkly outlined against a bright blue sky reading to disembodied ghosts from the book of life – the stuff of life, the real hard, concrete things that surround you. That is what this poem is all about; how poetry can reawaken you to the glories that surround you – much as Wordsworth wrote about in his Ode: Intimations of Immortality along with Whitman in Leaves of Grass:

"Clear and sweet is my Soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my Soul.
Lack one lacks both, and the unseen is proved by the seen,
Till that becomes unseen, and receives proof in its turn."

Large Red Man Reading

There were ghosts that returned to earth to hear his phrases,
As he sat there reading, aloud, the great blue tabulae.
They were those from the wilderness of stars that had expected more.

There were those that returned to hear him read from the poem of life,
Of the pans above the stove, the pots on the table, the tulips among them.
They were those that would have wept to step barefoot into reality,

That would have wept and been happy, have shivered in the frost
And cried out to feel it again, have run fingers over leaves
And against the most coiled thorn, have seized on what was ugly

And laughed, as he sat there reading, from out of the purple tabulae,
The outlines of being and its expressings, the syllables of its law:
Poesis, poesis, the literal characters, the vatic lines,

Which in those ears and in those thin, those spended hearts,
Took on color, took on shape and the size of things as they are
And spoke the feeling for them, which was what they had lacked.

---- Wallace Stevens

I thought, on the train, how utterly we have forsaken the Earth, in the sense of excluding it from our thoughts. There are but few who consider its physical hugeness, its rough enormity. It is still a disparate monstrosity, full of solitudes & barrens & wilds. It still dwarfs & terrifies & crushes. The rivers still roar, the mountains still crash, the winds still shatter. Man is an affair of cities. His gardens & orchards & fields are mere scrapings. Somehow, however, he has managed to shut out the face of the giant from his windows. But the giant is there, nevertheless.
---- Wallace Stevens from Souvenirs and Prophecies

The painting is Robert Rauschenberg's "Page 42, Paragraph 1 (Short Stories)". He was a master at presenting the stuff of life in art.

Winter's Coming

Big Frank has been thinking lately about the changing seasons and the coming of winter. There is a long break now from overseas travel so his weekends are now as free as his thoughts and inclinations. His bike is getting put away, and he's turning to thoughts of winter. No snow yet, but with the coming of the rains of autumn and the plummeting temperatures winter fun is on his mind. He's cleaning up his skiis and thinking of snow shoes. This form of winter footwear dates back thousands of years; and while some today still prefer the older wooden type (quieter and their frames don't freeze) still most opt for the newer hybrid or high tech kinds that are lighter and more durable. Snowshoing really has taken off in recent years and most ski resorts now offer trails, plus, of course, the advantage of being able to go pretty much anywhere with at least 8 inches of snow on the ground. Here's a great link to find out more information on snowshoes and snowshoeing, and here's the link to Snowshoe Magazine. So Big Frank will give this a try this winter in addition to the skiing. Let's hope the rain quickly turns to snow and covers the fallen leaves opening up new trails and adventures. Who else is interested?

Fado (upon returning)

Big Frank is back. He slid in on the back of the setting sun, and with wheels on the ground and bags unpacked, now it is as though he had never left. Except he did; and with trips there are the joys of seeing people long missed; there are partings; and there are returns and adjustments that come with that (hope - often unjustified - riding back with the traveler). Trips often end with some nostalgia, for the end of the trip, for the empty homecoming, and for the combination of hopes (met and dashed) that accompany journeys (coming and going). Last November Konrad and Big Frank went to Portugal and they both fell in love with Fado, a kind of Portugues blues that started in the early 19th century in . Fado means destiny or fate and and is typically linked to the nostagia felt missing someone. Here is a beautiful clip of Mariza (those who have her music are lucky and rare - at least in this country) singing one of her most beautiful and, for Big Frank, appropriate songs: Chuva ("Rain"). (The photo on the left is of Mariza.) The nostalgia comes through whether or not you understand Portuguese and if that still bothers you, just think of what the rain says to you when you think of what it is that you have lost in your life. The tune will stay with you forever.

Big Frank First To Project Obama Victory

Big Frank has conducted an informal poll among 40 people from 20 different countries from around the world. The question was not, "who do you think will win". The question was: "Who are you hoping will win?" The result was 40 would like Obama and 0 would like McCain. Why does this mean anything? It means that 40 people from around the world, educated people who follow American events, and American politics all are pulling for one person: Barack Obama. Is it possible that they are all wrong. No, it is not. Don't why it's not - it's just not possible. So on that basis in this poll Big Frank predicts Barack Obama as the winner of this presidential election and next president of the United States. And in timing of this prediction (4:55 pm) he beats CNN, NBC, CBS and all the rest.

Now Big Frank can return. He heads home tomorrow morning safe in the knowledge that we will be in good hands, with our new President Obama!

Working Hard & Taking It Easy (in Berlin)

Big Frank put in a hard day of work today talking to over 20 agents from all over the world. Konrad, on the other hand, hit the Vitality Club (see above photo), with pool, sauna, jacuzzi, gym, solarium, and massage all available! Then it was shopping time for both after Big Frank's work - shoes (sleek European ones). After returning to the hotel - Konrad finished some translations he's been working on while it was Big Frank's turn to hit the Vitality Club! A perfect day of work and play!

Potsdam

Today Konrad and Big Frank went to Potsdam, a small city just on the edge of Berlin. Most recently it has some renown as the place where Truman, Churchill, and Stalin met and decided how to carve up Europe after World War II. However, the real renown of Potsdam lies with the palaces and parks where the Prussian kings lived in the 18th century. People come to Potsdam to see Sanssouci - the old summer palace of the Prussion kings, including Neues Palais, a monumental baroque palace with more than 200 richly adorned rooms, and Park Sanssouci, a 700 acre park established in 1725. Throughout the park are a number of interesting buildings from an orangeri to a Chinese tea house. Konrad and Big Frank took the train to Potsdam, and then rode a bus out to the palace. There was a an American woman on the bus who had been living in Germany for over 30 years and it appeared that she hadn't talked to any Americans during that time. She gave us a thorough explanation of everything as the bus rolled along. After our sightseeing, we walked back to the city center and had a cup of java at Starbucks before taking the train back to Berlin. Great Day!

Riding Bikes

Achtung! Big Frank is in Berlin with his son, Konrad. It is, as always, hazy and overcast - gray skies. However, it is not raining. This first posting is the first thing that Big Frank did upon arrival - he went in search of the Robert Rauschenberg's "Riding Bikes", and with some wandering and a few questions he found it. It is just off Potsdamer Platz, installed in a small reflecting pool in the center of a small square, was installed in 1998, and it is absolutely beautiful. The neon was on and some reflection could be caught in the pool. So Big Frank was pleased. The bicyles bring back good memories for Big Frank, and the way the bikes are rising from the reflecting pool is a distincly good omen. What does this presage? Only the bikes know for sure. Achtung!