God, Nature, Beauty
1
God has no hormones, having delegated them to poets.
2
To reinvent God is unnecessary; all
He needs today is a Designer Name.
3
God is without scientific proof. Thank God!
4
No universal rainbows! All rainbows are local.
5
ANGELITY is the ideal metaphysical position for man.
Sainthood is too cruel, too costly; but angels can labor in
peace with men and God.
6
Poetry without ink? The poetry of the spirit is without ink.
7
God does not say Hello, He says, “Ole!”
8
God started with Space and Time, thus He created Light, then
Life, then Love. But only Love has difficulty in surviving.
Where are there square bubbles?
10
God’s best friend: Not the Pope, not the priest, but the poet.
11
God is more difficult than mathematics—and yet just as easy.
12
You can’t be an angel with only one wing.
(How about an angel with one wing and a horn?)
13
Knowing God as a name only leaves Him unknown;
only the Wrestler with God can truly feel Him.
14
In heaven are the sun and the night constellations—and the
black fires of heaven: the black holes that lasso in the dirt, to
cleanse the universe.
Genius
15
Genius—so capable of multiple aureoles, so capable of
turbulence.
16
The fine poet is an erotic Holy man.
17
It is the purpose of miracles to produce saints—but if the
miracle goes wayward…geniuses.
To read between the lines is Logic.
To read between the lines when there are no lines is Imagination.
19
When you stand in front of a wise man, however “clothed”
you are, you stand naked.
20
—Even accompanied, genius walks alone.
21
In the question: Unnoticed stands the truth erect.
In the answers: only devising logics.
22
GENIUS—The Inverted Man, standing on his head.
23
Shouldn’t “immortals” be buried (fittingly) in space?
24
Genius is a mind of garlic-and-roses.
Sex/Love
25
Love is a giant prison without walls, and without guards, yet
there’s no technology for escape.
26
Love is more vehement than God!
27
The love which begins with a tickle, or a smile, or a ling! ling!
—it does not matter which! For Love has begun.
Ah, sex—that epic of the night.
29
Love has no innovations—only sex has innovations.
30
Love may leave stains, yet with them also, leave flowers.
32
The word menopause is misnamed; it should be femopause.
33
I believe in the heart—in fact, I believe in every available organ.
34
Even in Rome, not every Roman does as Romans do.
Even in France, not every kiss is a French Kiss.
Art and Craft
35
Form is to Substance what a wet T-Shirt is to a fine body.
36
More important than pregnancy of line is felicity of line.
37
To be emancipated in art is to bind yourself to craft.
38
In art, you can’t push if nothing is pushing back.
39
To find the language that cuts, may hurt—yet heals,
gives joy, gives light.
A matter of physics—Length and Tension—How does the
performer make it sing above the laws of sound?
41
Great art is never born at room temperature.
42
Art is a miraculous flirtation with Nothing!
Aiming for nothing, and landing on the Sun.
43
CRAFT is not only the structure of art but also its safety net.
44
Art is the How, not the What, of the work.
45
The absolute, straight line between two points is,
however, not the line of wit. Wit must swerve to whip.
46
There are imperfections so charming that they are perfect.
47
Art is not difficult because it wishes to be difficult but
because it wishes to be art.
48
A Silence that Answers a Silence that Questions.
49
A poem is language built to the structure of a flower.
A poem
is
language
built
to the
struc-
ture of a
flower.
Poets
50
The poet tangos with the cosmos, but why not?
51
True poets spring from DNA stardust of poetry,
not from poetry workshops.
52
Be of good Fear that in your poetry you are involuntarily Naked!
53
A poet’s poem should be like a fireman’s fire—a risky danger,
a grand challenge, a heroic triumph.
54
Since he is introverted even in his extroverted language,
every good poet must be tethered to the sky.
55
Alas, there is no way, easy or hard, out of poetry.
It is his cage of gold.
If you write your poems at night, be sure that you can respect
them in the morning.
57
Language has secrets that only good poets can reveal.
58
Poets are not hungry; they hunger.
59
A poet, if he’s a real poet, will be at the mercy of the poem.
Poetry
60
The difference between good poetry and great poetry
lies in the quality called wisdom.
61
Language, Music, Craft, & Sense (or Mystery)
:the Quatrefoil & Quaternion of poetry.
62
The poem’s First Line: The coiled cobra.
63
A First Line that does not wink at the reader is
a dead, dead Line.
64
A poem is not a thought, but a grace.
65
Poetry is an angel with a gun in its hand.
Approach and you live. Depart and you die.
POETRY—The joy of language amidst the pain of existence.
67
Even prose can be poetic.
Only poetry can be poetric.
68
You can’t Think it in prose and then Write it in poetry.
69
Poetry without pizzazz is like a cocktail party with no drinks.
70
Does the Poet become the Poem? Or the Poem become the Poet?
Peotry/Peots
71
PEOTRY and PEOTS are my coined words for bad poetry
and bad poets.
72
Poems worth their weight in lead.
73
Most teachers of poetry, not only do not know their
onions—they have no onions.
74
Ah, a Greek chorus unto himself: a cockalorum.
75
They who, with all good will, use language
as an instrument of torture.
Poems there are that cannot survive the
cemeteries of their first lines.
77
Though miscast poets may have a love
for language, it is unrequited.
78
Humid writing: everything drips!
79
A bad poem is like a Wagnerian potato chip.
80
Lines that go Pffft.
Criticism and Critics
81
The future of Bad Poetry? Wonderful!
82
Magazines are full of poemburgers—but they don’t
mean a thing ‘’cause they don’t got that swing.’
83
A book of 50 poems—49 poems too long!
84
I’m not Simpleton-friendly. Hooray!
But neither am I Ph.D.-friendly. Hurrah!
85
Free verse is verse without a driver’s license.
86
What about the Prevention of Poetry?
Sometimes it’s better not to know what you know
than to “know” what you don’t know.
88
—Stuff that makes your eyelids gain weight.
89
Should have his BRAIN LOBES ROTATED.
90
Ah, his Peanut Eminence!
91
A good critic makes you Tick; the bad critic makes you
paralytic.
92
Bad poems, I’m sure, despise their authors!
93
Naïve, faux ambition responds to a spider’s invitation.
94
The poetaster’s disease is MESSAGE.
95
At last, there is AT LAST!
Intellect/Intelligence
96
Reason is merely connecting the dots but intelligence
is the creation of those dots.
97
The refinement of one’s language is ultimately
the refinement of one’s mind.
Monks do not bait themselves with fatuous mundane
dreams, but live in abstract, painful peace.
99
Hard decisions are in quiet made, but in turmoiling stillness.
100
Nor Time nor cosmetics can unwrinkle age, but age may
counter with unwrinkled wisdom.
101
Minds that do not tick well do not tickle.
102
The intellect—the specializing mind—is fraught with heavy
analyses. The intelligence—the generic and generous mind does not specialize but peregrinates like a wise butterfly to
discover joys.
103
There are Questions that outlast answers.
104
Do not confuse Bingo! (chance) with Eureka! (intellectual
effort)
105
THINKING is Abstracting: shearing off the superfice: and the
resultant thought is abstract: a stalwart Nude.
106
ABSTRACTION is the shorthand for essence: it erases
temporal matter for the eternal: The Phoenix after the flames.
107
What do you Know that you Don’t Know?
What don’t you Know that you Know?
108
H-O-M-O S-A-P…Stop Right There!
109
I shall always respect a human being more than a work of art.
110
Heart be simple, mind be complex.
111
A man—just a speck in the world! Should he not just sign his
name with a dot?
112
Only in the silence—perfect places in life—can you not
complain: the womb and the tomb.
113
Which came first—the Apple? or the Snake?
114
The longer one’s life, the longer one’s list of accountabilities.
115
To err is human,
To purr, feline.
116
Before you adopt yourself, ask for the bad references.
117
There are quality-of-life offenses, Not to be forgiven.
New Jews:
Survival through education.
Ancient Jews:
Educated by survival.
119
In front of your mirrors, Stand. Salute yourself with your right arm: in front of you, your image salutes with its left arm…This is the conundrum of mirrors! Wherefore, do mirrors lie? Of course they do.
120
Man is born Siamese to his shadow, and sometimes he is
only the Shadow’s shadow.
121
There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our
children. One is roots, the other, wings.
122
While in love trance, sign nothing.
The Artist
123
The Artist—that Alien from Inner Space, with an intuitive
metaphysical understanding of the power and passion of love—a golden intelligence of the spirit—the courage to call out, to speak out. Enough and Not enough—together in one clear voice.
124
The artist first learns art from God, who wakens him. Then God
assails and flails him with tutors, the master artists.
The artist problematizes, difficultizes his art: sets up hurdles,
challenges, Blockages: he celebrates obstacles.
126
Does one buy flowers without a stem? Yet an Artist would pick up and admire a stemless one or even a broken blossom. Or an interesting twig, or even a bit of brilliant, broken glass.
127
The centered self—the Ego. It takes an artist to go Off-Center.
128
“I recognize your voice.” One should be able to say that to a good singer—as to a good painter, a good poet, a good sculptor.
129
Art openings—making art the sanctuary of the uncivilized.
130
A blank page is perfect utopia. If you can write on it and still
leave the page utopian, then you are a great writer.
131
The moving, exploring camera of the imagination discovers
gems at unexpected intersections of life and mind.
132
An artist has nothing to say until his work utters it.
Poetry and Prose Processes
133
Switching from prose to poetry or vice versa: is like
undergoing a SEX CHANGE.
The meaning of a poem is danced and sung by its language—but the language is a masked dancer.
135
The Poetic Process operates without a compass yet
miraculously finds its North.
136
The prose writer makes things known in words; the poet
makes things known as words.
137
The novel is the longest distance between two points.
The short story is the shortest.
The poem is the congruence of the two points.
138
Prose, the good apple.
Poetry, the superb anti-apple.
139
The lyric factor—the chlorophyll of poetry.
140
It is the business of lovers to make love, and it is the
business of poets to create poetry: Two noble businesses—without the business of business.
141
Prose is flat-chested, but poetry is curvaceous and luscious.
142
Poetry is antimatter and antigravity.
Otherwise it could not soar.
143
WIT is a game/play between the alphabet and the mind.
144
When should a fling be flung? Dang if I know!
145
L—most beautiful of letters; and 7—most beautiful of
numbers—and Each, the capsized image of the other.
146
It is language that gives form to thought.
147
Beware of indigent language. But beware also of language
with a breast implant. And also the language of flatness!
148
E. E. Cummings jazzed up language. Gertrude Stein boogie-
woogied language. They made language with a joie de vivre.
149
A TYGER is a more ferocious image than Tiger.
150
CLICHES: The common hussies of language—the bimbos.
151
Poetry is a treasure hunt for language by language.
152
Move from OW to WOW! –from malady to melody.
Twist a zero at its middle—get 8.
Add a tail to zero’s right side—get 9.
154
JUNQUE=junk made elegant.