Uh-oh, here it comes again

Laughing Gravy

The crisis has just passed.
Uh-oh, here it comes again,
looking for someone to blame itself on, you, I . . .

All these people coming in . . .
The last time we necked
I noticed this lobe on your ear.
Please, tell me we may begin.

All the wolves in the wolf factory paused
at noon, for a moment of silence.

Magne's Aphorisms

Big Frank is a big fan of the aphorism: small bits of insight delivered in a pleasing way. Accent on the short. His good friend Magne is a master of the form and Big Frank is waiting for him to publish some of the thousands of aphorisms that he has written (3,174 and counting). Here is a sampling of some that Big Frank likes.

The aphorism is where the poet and the thinker meet to pass a secret message.

We walk among strangers as among ghosts.

It is hard to admit your feelings, but harder still to admit the trivial things that engender them.What makes us think that love is the answer? Our heart.

I don't need to be loved for who I am. I need to be loved in spite of who I am.

You must occasionally allow people to be tired and sick of you so they can love you again.

The greatest aphrodisiac is love

Sex is driving around enjoying the ride. Love is traveling — often to a place you have never been before.

A person can get killed trusting someone, but a person will die if they do not.

Happiness does not only come from doing what you want to do, happiness also comes from doing what you should be doing.

The price of happiness — is unhappiness.

I constantly construct a narrative for my feelings.

It is hard to admit your feelings, but harder still to admit the trivial things that engender them.

Our desire for things gets in the way of our understanding of things.

Truant exchanges ... brandished intentions

[Photo: Big Frank Dickinson, taken at North Bend, WA]

A beautiful poem by John Ashbery that will stay with you for some time afterwards.

Wakefulness

An immodest little white wine, some scattered seraphs,
recollections of the Fall—tell me,
has anyone made a spongier representation, chased
fewer demons out of the parking lot
where we all held hands?

Little by little the idea of the true way returned to me.
I was touched by your care,
reduced to fawning excuses.
Everything was spotless in the little house of our desire,
the clock ticked on and on, happy about
being apprenticed to eternity. A gavotte of dust motes
came to replace my seeing. Everything was as though
it had happened long ago
in ancient peach-colored funny papers
wherein the law of true opposites was ordained
casually. Then the book opened by itself
and read to us: “You pack of liars,
of course tempted by the crossroads, but I like each
and every one of you with a peculiar sapphire intensity.
Look, here is where I failed at first.
The client leaves. History natters on,
rolling distractedly on these shores. Each day, dawn
condenses like a very large star, bakes no bread,
shoes the faithless. How convenient if it’s a dream.”

In the next sleep car was madness.
An urgent languor installed itself
as far as the cabbage-hemmed horizons. And if I put a little
bit of myself in this time, stoppered the liquor that is our selves’
truant exchanges, brandished my intentions
for once? But only I get
something out of this memory.
A kindly gnome
of fear perched on my dashboard once, but we had all
been instructed
to ignore the conditions of the chase. Here, it
seems to grow lighter with each passing century. No matter
how you twist it,
life stays frozen in the headlights.
Funny, none of us heard the roar

TNT Mate

Big Frank has been reading from Jay Leeming's book of poetry entitled "Dynamite on a China Plate. The following helps a bit in approaching this book.

Dynamite (TNT): a useful explosive material with convenient handling properties. People exposed to TNT over a prolonged period tend to experience anemia and abnormal liver functions along with toxic delusions.

China Plate: London Cockney rhyming slang, china plate = mate.


Rowboat

An oar is a paddle with a home. This arrangement seems awkward at first, as if it were wrong; the wood knocks in the oarlock, and would much rather be a church steeple, or the propeller of an old airplane in France. Yet as it bites deep into the wave it settles down, deciding that the axe and the carpenter were right. And you, too, are supposed to be sitting this way, back turned to what you want, watching your history unravel across the waves as your legs brush against the gunnels. Your feet are restless, wanting to be more involved. But your back is what gets you there, closer to what finally surprises you from behind: waves lapping at the shore, the soft nuzzle of sand.

APPLE

Sometimes when eating an apple
I bite too far
and open up the little room
the lovers have prepared,
and the seeds fall
onto the kitchen floor
and I see
that they are tear-shaped.

People don't change ...

One more lap might just do it ... ha!

Maximus, to Gloucester: Letter 2
By Charles Olson

. . . . . tell you? ha! who
can tell another how
to manage the swimming?

he was right: people

don’t change. They only stand more
revealed. I,
likewise

Gina's Back (with blisters)

Big Frank was out on the trail yesterday with Gina and Laura. Gina is back for a break from college. We took a short hike in the Spokane area. It was fun, but Gina started getting blisters and so had to finish the hike in her socks, but she finished it.