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Irish mannequin in a store window during Mardi Gras, New Orleans, Louisiana: photo by Carol M. Highsmith, 6 January 2008 (Carol M. Highsmith's America, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division)
said the store window mannequin, but if they had,
I'd have preferred almost anywhere to this festival
of false delights, where the distance between wishes
and dreams is equal to the distance between
promises and lies. That is, it doesn't exist. The deer
do not come down to the water to utter
their spontaneous cries. There's nothing here but concrete.
The deer are legitimately terrified. I too
am terrified. Morning in the canyon, then again night
in the canyon. The gap grows ever more wide
the way the light falls
on a diagonal, the night in its radial aspect
defying meditation. A moon rose in the mind and each thing there
picked up its radial aspect in the night.
Sometime in another other
wise completely ordinary
random century.
________
On Tom Clark's Poetry:
"Clark's exactitudes of diction generate and inform the imagination... finally it is only poetry that is capable of saving such extensive cultural memory from the vortex of history." -- Edward Dorn
"A writer known and loved for his enthusiasm, curiosity, purity of scope of imagination, and an amazing ability to blend humor and cosmic concerns." -- Amy Gerstler
"The place he writes from, of void/non-void overlap, is a pure arena for the imagination to play in; and Clark is likewise pure: austere, bleak, exalted too... shimmering as ever." -- Alice Notley
"[Clark] really flows and gambles and plays it loose. I like his guts... He's the raw gnawing end of the moon." -- Charles Bukowski
"Tom Clark has been one of American poetry's most consistent and constant chroniclers of our long sleepwalk to parts unknown." -- Joel Lewis
"He is one of our original modern troubadours, and he deserves to be read." -- Tony Hoagland
"Tom Clark's poems seize the heart. They make it stop, for a second or two. They make you think twice about reading anything carelessly, ever again." -- Anselm Hollo
Click here for information about Tom Clark's new BlazeVOX book Canyonesque
17 comments:
I appreciate Lewis' .... stream:
"(...) of our long sleepwalk to parts unknown."
where (our) dreams merely interrupt our sleep (death). ?
this "mannequin REALLY re-minds me of the girl in the window in the place next door to the Hanson Hotel in
Amsterdam (1968-9)
dressed and lit up like this "girl" is..
(((( there is more to the story (there all-ways is) of
the Girl in the Window Next Door...
et cetera...
Tom
just read (thanks to amazon) some of the poems in your Canyonesque
and right there in IN A MILITARY ENCAMPMENT
is an allusion to my latest/dead Muse (Sophia)
so
now off to buy the book DIRECTLY via BlazeVOX
& follow your The Trail .... again.
thanks
Tom,
"the way the light falls
on a diagonal. . ."
10.14
light coming into sky above still black
ridge, waning white moon above branches
in foreground, sound of wave in channel
which appeared in paintings,
considered “physical”
subject, so that being then
was one, had been but
silver of sunlight reflected in channel,
shadowed canyon of ridge across from it
Congrats, Tom. Thanks for parting me from even more money ... :-)
SOme things ARE WORTH BUYING.
"He's done a bunch of shit."
We're all the better for it.
Wow, what a great poet this person Tom Clark is. And now to seek out the book . . .
I love this, especially the last two sentences, which address my mood and mean a lot to me at the moment. Congratulations on Canyonyesque. I echo John's (and the others') thoughts and will be scurrying to purchase. All the author quotes are very good and acute; I really love Anselm Hollo's. Curtis
Very kind words from everyone. This book is the product of the combined labours of love of a heroic chef from Buffalo and an old schlumpf... er, well-meaning senior almost-citizen.
Any orders will come as richly deserved blessings to the former, and for that matter, the latter will be inordinately grateful as well.
Tom, you may remember I was asking you about Keats biographies, I've found one you don't seem to know about.
Artur.
Looks great, Tom - and the Amazonian tasters are enticing. A really terrific cover, too - aching zeitgeisty sadness. I sense a number of BTP threads over the last year or so gathering in that shop-window. Congratulations - hope you're pleased with it.
Congratulations, Tom. I look forward to reading your newest book.
Congratulations Tom
Such heartfelt paeans from everybody. And upon 'looking inside the book', the first lines I, rather carelessly, read-
Eighty-two storeys from the Observation
Tower. The photo of the week.
And now I am re-reading everything. Needless to say .. magic.
Yes, indeed, to echo nearly everyone here already. I'm really looking forward to this.
Order this book? No sooner said than done. (Now if I can only remember where I stashed all those drachmas!)
I am overwhelmed.
Yes, locating the drachmas, oft a task of mythic proportions, these days!
i must have missed this with all the packing and moving i've done over the past few weeks. better late than never, ordered just now and can't wait to put my eyes all over it :)
That's very sweet of you, g. It's got eyes for your eyes.
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