Of Li Po Waking The Morning After, circa 1981
'Let me be forever drunk and never come to reason!
Sober men of olden days and sages are forgotten,
And only the great drinkers are famous for all time.' - Li Po
'We share life's joys when sober.
Drunk, each goes a separate way.' - Li Po
Waking up among these frail green things,
by the stream I hear the hornets singing.
I do not fear them but I fear the sting
of light as day creeps into my shade.
I have read of sad and joyful things
under last night's moon and now I weep
for the Immortals fading from light
to light with their pockets of pine bark
and resin to chew, their wine of sorrow
to drink in their, and my, sorrowful season.
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poem by Warren Falcon
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History Before Was Brunch Ever
For Workers everywhere, bricks, straw, verse.
The breast naturally of Woman is bread before
there was bread, the child the loaf swelling in
Her arms to farm & from such frame a world.
Thus Labor. Bread is History.
Child's toil, unspoiled, forms a culture beast,
he crawls forth, makes bread of soil native &
other, a Mother culture all & still, everywhere.
- Diogenes Teufelsdröckh, from 'Immigrants Exile, Labor, Drive Or Will, And The Lady Mother - A Malafiction'
1
History before was brunch ever in the world.
Sunday. St. Marks & 1st Avenue. Red, red Simone,
doors open to sun and saunter, the wander, now
'arm in arm they goes' just past the corner where
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poem by Warren Falcon
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That We Can Be Broken - A Bird Spirit Speaks Of Beginnings
.
Citizen! What have they done with all the air? - Victor Serge
1
I began
a bird flown down a chimney,
an empty house hidden in a
mountain valley, a night time
fire upon surrounding hills,
a moonshine still's signal flame,
a bootlegger's warning,
a silent spirit conjuring
drip by drip
metal and grain.
No blue fire therein.
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poem by Warren Falcon
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Missive For Darkness As Vocation, William Hawkins In Mind
[after viewing a film clip of the American
self-taught artist, William Hawkins]
How would he depict it, your
great sorrow now,
even a corner of it?
Perhaps
forge on, find a
photo, a horse
to paint, as in the film,
then busy himself with the making
of it, then see how the belly is too much,
needs to be thinned, a back haunch
trimmed to size,
a concise seizure of eye and paint
dependent upon hands,
a monumental concern which arights,
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poem by Warren Falcon
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Four Against the Shapeless Wind
for Selin
1
You may find me thundering in a hut
on the small of the mountain reading
poems to curious goats. They listen
patiently before eating the paper
upon which they are written.
I have now resorted, denying loneliness
(thus the always hovering goats) ,
to arguing with the sad priest twice
a week over bad sherry transported
over the mountain. The pass's old Rock
comments on the shape and weight of
each bottle carefully wrapped in soft
flannel curved the shape of the way
upon which unsteady travelers depart
and return. From such a journey it
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poem by Warren Falcon
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Upon Kingfisher Wings - Letter 1 From Minimus Cast Out Into Space Praying Net Or Nest Catches
.
'The kingfishers! who cares for their feathers now? ' - Charles Olson
1
I, Minimus, launch forth regardless.
I have right to dare my feeble casting
forth, and off, of fetters, the jellies of
sin, and sally, well, if not sally, to jostle
the crowd in the bus station to purchase
my escape to spacious...what? Space,
I guess, to dream outside of who I am or
of what I have become and can see in-
ex-or-ably, ably, I hope, written in stars
or just desserts, just well-dressed guesses
derived from stormy Herald's blurting,
O winking paradisio, distant still,
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poem by Warren Falcon
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Tio, Losing His Sums, Ontologizes 'What Has Become of Me
[translated from the Spanish of Raul Voz]
'The world of dew is
a world of dew...
and yet...
and yet...' - Issa
Y que? Yet what?
I am a cabin
some woods
Tio's Tree
a crotch mountain
in Mexico
I am drawn water from
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poem by Warren Falcon
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Privilege Kicks - A Meditation In Paces Near William Faulkner's Grave
'I believe that when the last ding-dong of doom has
clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging
tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even
then there will still be one more sound: that of man's
puny, inexhaustible, voice still talking! …not simply
because man alone among creatures has an inexhaustible
voice, but because man has a soul, a spirit capable of
compassion, sacrifice and endurance'
— William Faulkner - Nobel Prize Banquet Speech
*
A sign, green background, yellow
lettering, in a Mississippi graveyard,
reads:
'WILLIAM FAULKNER
The creator of
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poem by Warren Falcon
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The Empress of Contrails Writes Upon Darkness - Anxiety of Influence
.
for Anthros Del Mar
I, on the other hand,
have lain down with
countless thousands.
My tent is worn out.
Love cries some blood
where tongues are root-ground,
utterance hard pounded,
soft tissue torn letter by letter,
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poem by Warren Falcon
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from 'Ragas For Krishna' - Part 3
from 'Ragas For Krishna'
Sleepy Bee, he is rising beneath me, the hidden god is pleased
Somniculosus Apis, Sleepy Bee
Ascendit infra me, He rises beneath me
Deus absconditus placet, The hidden God is pleased
He is busy preparing a repast of sacred chilies of his Mother's garden born. Who will hear him sing their praises but me present alone with him here?
Yesterday Krishna arrived more radiant than when we first met beside the cardamom and the ghee in the intoxicating basement of the Indian food and spice shop not easily hidden below the sidewalk, such aromas cannot to be tucked away like the shop is, beside and below the avenue, just as his radiance cannot, should not, be hidden.
Which flower should I adorn my table with? I ask, approaching shyly beside the spice bins. I buzz inside, a bee for the nectar.
If you serve, says he, If you serve with cardamom and ghee then flowers three are best, the jasmine, the oleander, the anthurium. But if choosing only one, he looks at me, something insistent, responding, in his eyes, I would choose for you the anthurium.
And so we begin our time together, the first demur approaches, the blushing papayas, the cooking lessons, then the fires, the chilies harvested, curtains drawn. One day perhaps I shall fall but in this way:
I shall fling
the curtains back
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poem by Warren Falcon
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