Refugee, Tsazac, Guatemala, 83: photo by Marcelo Montecino, 6 September 2014
Refugees, Ixil Triangle, Guatemala, 82: photo by Marcelo Montecino, 8 February 2005
Dance of Conquest, Chichicastenango, Guatemala: photo by Marcelo Montecino, 30 January 2005
Scavenging at the Dump, Guatemala, 1985: photo by Marcelo Montecino, 14 November 2014
Scavenging, Guatemala: photo by Marcelo Montecino, 18 February 2005
Peasants hunting peasants, Guatemala, 1983: photo by Marcelo Montecino, 19 July 2017
What happens when a great civilization that uses money meets one that does not? They smash each other to smithereens. The horror of [Columbus'] lettera rarissima is fully retained in events. Having sucked the gold out of the Caribbean, Columbus and his successors extinguished almost all the human life. The labour forced on the natives shattered not only their customary subsistence but also their morale, and many simply suicided. By the 1520s, when the Spanish turned their attention to Mexico, the islands of Cuba, Española, Puerto Rico and Jamaica were, according to Las Casas, depopulated. On the mainland Bernal Díaz, an old soldier who had served with Cortés in the conquest of Mexico, would not sleep on a bed in his farm in Guatemala (unless there happened to be gentlemen staying); but paced with his wounds under the wet stars; and each time he closed his eyes he saw his companions dragged up the pyramids, and then their quaking hearts in the pyre-light; and men and horses crashing off the causeway. The disciples of Bartolomé de Las Casas were in despair at the condition of the Indians, which seemed a poor exchange even for the introduction of God's incomparable grace to a hemisphere.
James Buchan: from A Disease of the Heart, in Frozen Desire: the Meaning of Money, 1997
Emotional photos show kids reuniting with their deported parents: photos by John Moore/Getty Images, CNN, 8 August 2018
Nine Guatemalan children were reunited with their parents Tuesday, months after they had been separated at the US border as part of the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” immigration policy.
The
parents were among hundreds of migrants who had been deported without
their children. Getty Images photographer John Moore was there to
capture the emotional scenes.
“I was concentrating on taking photos, in a
really cramped space, so I couldn’t listen in on much of their
conversations,” Moore said. “At one point I heard a father say
‘Perdoname’ (‘Forgive me’) to his son when they were reunited. He, like
most parents, didn’t know they might be separated from their children
after crossing the border into the US.”
The children flew to Guatemala City from New York, where some of them had been held since being separated from their parents. After being processed at the airport, they were taken to a local shelter where their parents were waiting. Moore called the reunions “bittersweet, at best.”
“There were tears of joy and relief, but also of anguish and regret,” he said.
These are the first nine children to be returned to their deported parents in Guatemala, according to the country’s social welfare ministry. In June, a federal judge ordered the US government to reunite all parents and children it had separated at the border.
Families wait to embrace their children for the first time in months.
Leo Jeancarlo de Leon, 6, plays with blocks while being processed at the airport in Guatemala City. He was later reunited with his mother, Lourdes. They spent almost three months apart.
A social worker holds the hand of one of the boys.
A man is overcome with emotion as he hugs his son. “Since media is not allowed to photograph moments of separation or children detained away from their parents, reunification pictures are complicated,” Moore said. “They tell a part of an urgent, important but ultimately incomplete story.”
There was a heavy media presence for the children’s return.
A teddy bear lies in a chair while the children wait to be processed at the airport in Guatemala City. The children were given snacks and toys to play with.
Parents embrace their son at the shelter in Guatemala City.
Filomena, 6, plays while she waits to be reunited with her father, who had been deported after they crossed the US-Mexico border.
Social workers write names on new backpacks for the children.
One of the boys uses his thumbprint to sign reception documents at the shelter.
Guatemalan first lady Patricia Marroqui’n
kisses 10-year-old Abner Raul after he was reunited with his family. “A
few months ago, the Guatemalan government received criticism on how it
initially handled these separations, so this week it tried to show a
more active and positive role in the reintegration of its citizens after
deportation from the US,” Moore said.
A Guatemalan security agent awaits the children’s arrival.
Bus, Santiago, 2010: photo by Marcelo Montecino, 24 September 2010
Untitled, Santiago, Chile, 2000: photo by Marcelo Montecino, 13 October 2005
Morgue, Santiago, 2011 -11: photo by Marcelo Montecino, 25 August 2011
Untitled, Santiago, 90: photo by Marcelo Montecino, 17 October 2005
Untitled [Puerto Cabello, Carabobo, Venezuela]: photo by German Adolfo, 5 May 2011
Catia, Caracas: photo by Anthony Salazar, sometime in 2017
Catia, Caracas: photo by Anthony Salazar, sometime in 2017
Hora pico. | Respire profundo. [Caracas]: photo by Daren Ruiz, 10 October 2011
Pescas de arrastre 01 | Tucacas, Edo. Falcón. Venezuela: photo by Patricia Simmons, 13 May 2011
La Sabana, Vargas [Venezuela]: photo by Anthony Salazar, sometime in 2017
A Guatemalan security agent awaits the children’s arrival.
museum of memory
Lonely Afternoon, Santiago 90: photo by Marcelo Montecino, 17 March 2014
Bus, Santiago, 2010: photo by Marcelo Montecino, 24 September 2010
Untitled, Santiago, Chile, 2000: photo by Marcelo Montecino, 13 October 2005
Morgue, Santiago, 2011 -11: photo by Marcelo Montecino, 25 August 2011
Untitled, Santiago, 90: photo by Marcelo Montecino, 17 October 2005
Score for sad symphony, Santiago, 2010: photo by Marcelo Montecino, 11 September 2010
Military parade, Santiago, 2010: photo by Marcelo Montecino, 19 September 2010
Military parade, Santiago, 2000: photo by Marcelo Montecino, 14 October 2005
Military parade, Santiago, 2010: photo by Marcelo Montecino, 19 September 2010
Military parade, Santiago, 2000: photo by Marcelo Montecino, 14 October 2005
Calle triste, Santiago, 2010: photo by Marcelo Montecino, 11 January 2010
Museo de la memoria, Santiago, 2010 -12: photo by Marcelo Montecino, 11 January 2010
Museo de la memoria, Santiago, 2010 -12: photo by Marcelo Montecino, 11 January 2010
Untitled [Puerto Cabello, Carabobo, Venezuela]: photo by German Adolfo, 5 May 2011
Catia, Caracas: photo by Anthony Salazar, sometime in 2017
Catia, Caracas: photo by Anthony Salazar, sometime in 2017
Catia, Caracas: photo by Anthony Salazar, sometime in 2017
Hora pico. | Respire profundo. [Caracas]: photo by Daren Ruiz, 10 October 2011
Pescas de arrastre 01 | Tucacas, Edo. Falcón. Venezuela: photo by Patricia Simmons, 13 May 2011
La Sabana, Vargas [Venezuela]: photo by Anthony Salazar, sometime in 2017
museum of memory
Braniff International Airlines advertisement for Braniff International Airlines: Time, 4 October 1961 (Gallery of Graphic Design)
I saw the waves of big planes filling the sky and thought of Caracas Maracaibo Macchu Picchu Panama and Bogota
Lima Buenos Aires Sao Paulo Rio de Janeiro
those exotic places so mysterious and faraway and all all ours
to take interesting romantic gringo vacations in whenever we pleased if we could afford it
though for some it was not all play maybe a smidgeon of work of which I never saw any
but trusted in what I was told and when my cousin jim who'd been fucked up in war
having been made to leap off the deck of an LST into roiled unfriendly waters
survived and considered himself let off easy
with a back injury not permanently disabling so that soon enough
he had disappeared mysteriously into South America Caracas Venezuela was gone was gone
then was back and now mysteriously better off than he'd been before how can that have happened
nobody would say this mystery compounded with curious evidence
gathered in San Pedro courtesy my uncle harry who wasn't my uncle but knew the world
had a bit of time on his hands the rectal cancer was slow he'd take me to it that famous world
to cray jai alai in tijuana to the celebrated long beach pier amusements to god
knows where and the day when some dock boss he knew in Pedro let us hang
in the huge dark unloading shed so that when the green bunches
still on the stalks came off the vast boat the gaping kid with big eyes could be shown the gigantic dazed tarantulas
that had been riding free all the way from south america now seeing the glaring proprietary light of el norte for the first time
racing to escape onto the mechanized conveyor loading belt
and the dock hands laughed to see such sport the wowed kid the panicky fugitive tarantulas
scrambling for their scarified hairy alien lives
United Fruit Company advertisement for Chiquita Bananas: Life, 4 November 1966 (Gallery of Graphic Design)
Pan America advertisement for Air Travel: Time, 17 September 1956 (Gallery of Graphic Design)
Pan America advertisement for Air Travel: Time, 17 September 1956 (Gallery of Graphic Design)
United Fruit Company advertisement for Chiquita Bananas: Life, 8 April 1957 (Gallery of Graphic Design)
Pan America advertisement for Air Travel: Time, 15 September 1958 (Gallery of Graphic Design)
United Fruit Company advertisement for Chiquita Bananas: Woman's Day, 1 March 1948 (Gallery of Graphic Design)
Panagra Airlines advertisement for Air Travel: Time, 17 November 1961 (Gallery of Graphic Design)
Pan America advertisement for Air Travel: Time, 15 September 1958 (Gallery of Graphic Design)
United Fruit Company advertisement for Chiquita Bananas: Woman's Day, 1 March 1948 (Gallery of Graphic Design)
Panagra Airlines advertisement for Air Travel: Time, 17 November 1961 (Gallery of Graphic Design)
United Fruit Company advertisement for Chiquita Bananas: Life, 15 September 1956 (Gallery of Graphic Design)
César Vallejo: Piedra negra sobre una piedra blanca (Black stone on top of a white stone)
It shall be a Thursday, because today, Thursday
As I put down these lines, I have set my shoulders
To the evil. Never like today have I turned,
And headed my whole journey to the ways where I am alone.
César Vallejo is dead. They struck him,
All of them, though he did nothing to them,
They hit him hard with a stick and hard also
With the end of a rope. Witnesses are: the Thursdays,
The shoulder bones, the loneliness, the rain, and the roads...
Panorama of Masjid al-Haram (the Grand Mosque) at Mecca, Saudi Arabia: photo by Bluemango2z, 22 December 2007
también con una soga; son testigos
los días jueves y los huesos húmeros,
la soledad, la lluvia, los caminos...
The Ka'aba in Mecca surrounded by pilgrims during Hajj season: photo by Al-Fassam, 1 January 2003
epa editor's choice 16 August 2018: Pilgrims visit the Hiraa cave at Jabal al-Nour, the Mountain of Light, during the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, 15 August 2018. Around 2.5 million Muslims are expected to attend this year's Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, the holiest place in Islam.#Pilgrims #HiraaCave #JabalAlNour #Hajj #Hajj2018 #Mecca #Makkah #makkamukaramah #SaudiArabia #epaphotos Photo epa-efe / Mohammed Saber: image via epaphotos @epaphotos, 16 August 2018
Laborers, students and immigrants cross Mexico’s porous southern border from Guatemala into Chiapas, Mexico. This unofficial crossing point is a preferred route for many who choose to avoid the official international bridge located directly above. #gettyimagesnews: image via John Moore @jbmoorephotos, 14 August 2018
#Twitteringmachine [Paul Klee, gouache and pen and ink oil transfer on paper, 1922] Originally displayed @Germany, the image was declared "degenerate art" by #AdolfHitler #NYC #art: image via Dulce Leyva @dugeth, 25 September 2014
@realDonaldTrump returns to Washington after a 12-day working vacation at his golf property in New Jersey.: image via Jeff Mason @JeffMason1, 13 August 2018
In 1992 twitter worked with these #twitteringmachine: image via Sampsa Granström @Sampsa_G, 12 February 2013
Roasted peanuts (closeup): photo by Geographer, 2007
Twitter Fail Whale error message: image by Yiying Lu, 2009
Blueprint sketch by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, envisioning an SMS-based social network: photo by Jack Dorsey, 24 March 2006
Emergency Tweet: photo by Paul Randall, 2009
Naked Pizza takeout and delivery store, Claiborne and Calhoun Streets, New Orleans: photo by Infrogmation, 2010
Movement of Jah People
Muslim
pilgrims pray at the Grand Mosque today, ahead of the annual Hajj
pilgrimage in the Muslim holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia. Photo
@daryasin: image via AP Images @AP_Images, 16 August 2018
César Vallejo: Piedra negra sobre una piedra blanca (Black stone on top of a white stone)
البيت العتيق -- The Primordial House "Ka'aba" at Mecca during hajj season: photo by A.S. Dhanny, 19 October 2012
I shall die in Paris, in a rainstorm,
On a day I already remember.
I shall die in Paris -- it does not bother me --
Doubtless on a Thursday, like today, in autumn.
On a day I already remember.
I shall die in Paris -- it does not bother me --
Doubtless on a Thursday, like today, in autumn.
It shall be a Thursday, because today, Thursday
As I put down these lines, I have set my shoulders
To the evil. Never like today have I turned,
And headed my whole journey to the ways where I am alone.
César Vallejo is dead. They struck him,
All of them, though he did nothing to them,
They hit him hard with a stick and hard also
With the end of a rope. Witnesses are: the Thursdays,
The shoulder bones, the loneliness, the rain, and the roads...
Panorama of Masjid al-Haram (the Grand Mosque) at Mecca, Saudi Arabia: photo by Bluemango2z, 22 December 2007
Me moriré en París con aguacero,
un día del cual tengo ya el recuerdo.
Me moriré en París y no me corro
tal vez un jueves, como es hoy, de otoño.
un día del cual tengo ya el recuerdo.
Me moriré en París y no me corro
tal vez un jueves, como es hoy, de otoño.
Jueves será, porque hoy, jueves, que proso
estos versos, los húmeros me he puesto
a la mala y, jamás como hoy, me he vuelto,
con todo mi camino, a verme solo.
estos versos, los húmeros me he puesto
a la mala y, jamás como hoy, me he vuelto,
con todo mi camino, a verme solo.
César Vallejo ha muerto, le pegaban
todos sin que él les haga nada;
le daban duro con un palo y duro
todos sin que él les haga nada;
le daban duro con un palo y duro
también con una soga; son testigos
los días jueves y los huesos húmeros,
la soledad, la lluvia, los caminos...
César Vallejo (1892-1938): Piedra negra sobre una piedra blanca (Black stone on top of a white stone) from Poemas Humanos (Human Poems) (1923-1938), 1938; English version by Thomas Merton, 1960
The Ka'aba in Mecca surrounded by pilgrims during Hajj season: photo by Al-Fassam, 1 January 2003
epa editor's choice 16 August 2018: Pilgrims visit the Hiraa cave at Jabal al-Nour, the Mountain of Light, during the annual Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, 15 August 2018. Around 2.5 million Muslims are expected to attend this year's Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, the holiest place in Islam.#Pilgrims #HiraaCave #JabalAlNour #Hajj #Hajj2018 #Mecca #Makkah #makkamukaramah #SaudiArabia #epaphotos Photo epa-efe / Mohammed Saber: image via epaphotos @epaphotos, 16 August 2018
Laborers,
students and immigrants cross Mexico’s porous southern border from
Guatemala into Chiapas, Mexico. This unofficial crossing point is a
preferred route for many who choose to avoid the official international
bridge located directly above. #gettyimagesnews: image via John Moore @jbmoorephotos, 14 August 2018
Laborers,
students and immigrants cross Mexico’s porous southern border from
Guatemala into Chiapas, Mexico. This unofficial crossing point is a
preferred route for many who choose to avoid the official international
bridge located directly above. #gettyimagesnews: image via John Moore @jbmoorephotos, 14 August 2018
Laborers, students and immigrants cross Mexico’s porous southern border from Guatemala into Chiapas, Mexico. This unofficial crossing point is a preferred route for many who choose to avoid the official international bridge located directly above. #gettyimagesnews: image via John Moore @jbmoorephotos, 14 August 2018
Laborers,
students and immigrants cross Mexico’s porous southern border from
Guatemala into Chiapas, Mexico. This unofficial crossing point is a
preferred route for many who choose to avoid the official international
bridge located directly above. #gettyimagesnews: image via John Moore @jbmoorephotos, 14 August 2018
When
your twittering machine starts feeling kind of neglected... pouting there beside your pillow as though it thinks maybe you don't love it any more... and in the night you hear its familiar call... beckoning... something deep in your heroic teuton outerboroughs bonespurs awakens... as you go into motion your imperial robe pinches a bit... you loosen the belt strap... your twittering machine won't let you rest... tweet with me now, it croons impatiently... your
tiny fat fingers do an anxious little jig around it and now you hardly know what you're doing... you're in power glide... then its strange ravening dead bird mouth beak opens and... out comes a sound only other dead birds and Republicans can hear!
#Twitteringmachine [Paul Klee, gouache and pen and ink oil transfer on paper, 1922] Originally displayed @Germany, the image was declared "degenerate art" by #AdolfHitler #NYC #art: image via Dulce Leyva @dugeth, 25 September 2014
@realDonaldTrump returns to Washington after a 12-day working vacation at his golf property in New Jersey.: image via Jeff Mason @JeffMason1, 13 August 2018
In 1992 twitter worked with these #twitteringmachine: image via Sampsa Granström @Sampsa_G, 12 February 2013
Peanuts
Roasted peanuts (closeup): photo by Geographer, 2007
The attention span of a human in the age of the internet: the size of a peanut, with room for a few billion tweets to spare.
Inner space, it's the new lebensraum, as the shades of evening fall.
Inner space, it's the new lebensraum, as the shades of evening fall.
Twitter Fail Whale error message: image by Yiying Lu, 2009
Blueprint sketch by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, envisioning an SMS-based social network: photo by Jack Dorsey, 24 March 2006
Emergency Tweet: photo by Paul Randall, 2009
Naked Pizza takeout and delivery store, Claiborne and Calhoun Streets, New Orleans: photo by Infrogmation, 2010
41 comments:
The émigré spiders would have been something to see. Your archaeological work here feels necessary. There's an abrasive veracity to the picture.
The US has no proper sense of how that other continent has shaped its psyche; poor Guatemala, the mid-section of the umbilicus.
The thought of that inner life/ Lebensraum is terrifying.
Tom, in loving memory. Don from Lilliput Review.
Goodbye Tom Clark. Travel well. We will miss your poems, these photos, your spirit, the gifts you gave us for seeing the world.
Gary Lawless
RIP, Mr. Clark. You are one of the folks who helped to keep me informed on what was happening around our lonely planet, and - most importantly - you strived to put our fellow human's lives into the picture, something the MSM newz rarely, if ever, does. You shall be gravely missed.
I will miss you each day and each night.
First thing I remember is hearing is that Ted Berrigan poem about Tom. One of the lines went, "Give him a mask and he'll show you the truth." It's an important poem I think. At least it was to me. It cut through the flack. Cut some slack. And then I met Tom, at his house with Noel Black, Ed Berrigan, Micah Ballard and maybe Cedar Sigo? We used to do that kind of thing often, drop in on The Poets. Anyway he was a great host. I remember he was excited to play an old Donovan track for us. And of course there was poetry talk all night. I remember when we left, he held my hand for the longest time, in both of his, and looked me deep in the eyes. For an uncomfortably long time. It felt, even then, as if he was looking into the future, seeing me here now, looking back at him, beyond the mask.
I hope this blog will edify and enlighten for a few millennia or more. It's a treasure. I'll come back and visit soon.
Many, many thanks, Tom. A bow in sorrow and in homage. Blessings for the journey into the stars. You shall forever be missed.
From the time some time ago that I happened upon your blog, I have drawn inspiration from your commentary, poetry, and images and shared some of my own poems in the comments. Your sense of justice and devotion to truth were untarnished and profound. May you always be remembered for the extraordinary poet and person you were. The world is the sorrier for your absence. May peace be with you.
Dear Tom,
Thanks for this and for everything else, always there and always arriving here and now still always here. Love to you in the big wild blue up there yonder.
Steve
“Time’s winged chariot,” he once wrote, “is double parked near the eternity frontier.”
I will miss you...
What a beautiful last blog. How you continued to burn with that energy and passion that lived in everything you did. Where does one go now for the tears and laughter? Happy you didn't have to witness Fulham's 3-1 loss to Tottenham.
Love you Tom
Such sudden grief. Dear Tom, it's a shock and I'm in disbelief that your work has come to stop. This blog has been one of the great works of the era, combining images and text and, often, music. I can't imagine that it, like you, is gone. I hope to find out about memorial and attend. Condolences to Angelica. Hilton
Such sudden grief. Condolences to Angelica and to all the many who have read this blog and Tom's books.
Hilton
And what is now missing, Tom, are your replies to these our comments.
So much gratitude for reading / hearing your voice over the decades. At one time I was a young man in need of inspiration from another, still young but older, wiser man: "Because life is a family. / Did I drive right?" Blessings to you, Tom Clark, and to your family and friends.
Off Ache News
Tom (Poet) Clark
Funny as all get out
Finally got out of Dodge
Everything is upside down.
That title is supposed to be Eff as in Fucking (effing auto correct), but without editor TC I can't get out of my own effing way. Guess we'll all have to find our own way. Thank you, Angelica, for being his and our shining light. k
Stones (1969) was the first single individual's collection of poems I think I ever owned; I would have been 17 at the time. Be at peace, Tom Clark, and thank you for your torrent of words across our shared lifetime.
Oh, this sudden grief.
Thank you Tom & Angelica for the blog & the works . . .
Emptiness Is Our Lot In Life
Rest in peace, friend--
For where you were only
A minute ago, the vacant
Space is now full
Of longing.
The price of admission was putting up with his difficult moods....but it was well worth it. In the early 90s, I studied Wyatt, Herrick, Marvell, Keats Pound and Berrigan at his feet. (I missed Olson.)
Tom Clark was a great and loving mentor who combined scholarship and artistic creation and Keats and Kerouac in one one radiant package. I feel very fortunate to have spent time in his dining room with his riffs and rambles.
Met Tom recently just as a neighbor. I really looked forward to talking more with him. Two weeks before he was killed he warned me about the dangers of walking near Marin Avenue in Berkeley. I met him while he was crossing Marin and I noticed he was very careful. He told me he had been hit before by a car on Marin and that there had been seven fatalities on this street since the 1980's. Marin Avenue in Berkeley is a wide dark street with round street corners that allow drivers to take right turns without slowing down. Unfortunately this street is a very unsafe for pedestrians and more people will be killed crossing Marin Avenue in the future.
The NYT obit made me smile. TC with the really good hair. k
I started everyday looking at Doonesbury and Tom's blog. Tom's was the harder work but I can't think of anybody who has made poetry and art that look so straight into the evil and beauty of our time.
I can't believe that I just found Tom Clark - returned to him today and found him gone. I give thanks that so much of him is still here. And I envy all those who knew him longer.
This last chapter of "Beyond the Pale" is resonant, prophetic, and still. The way it lays down visual planks of suffering face to face with the reader, taking us there, with long unbroken stretches of no commentary at all...
A silence broken in this last foray just a few times: the longish monologue evoking all of South America; the terrific small satire of a Twitter "machine" in the small fat fingers of Guess Who; the sudden shift from South America to Mecca and the Muslim pilgrimage, with its powerful image of life as a Journey; and finally the inclusion of Cesar Vallejo's haunting elegy for himself-- of all the poems to select from, it's uncanny that it should be this one, on 8/17/18, in light of Tom's passing and the closing of the Blog on 8/18/18. The link made between the poem "Piedra negra sobre una piedra blanca" and the images of the Kabah is striking and Otherworldly.
The Clark blog is, to me, what someone once said of prayer: that it's a stream running by your house into which you may take a cleansing dip when you want.
These years of blog pieces feel like a joint project between Tom and Angelica. I hope it's never taken down. Requiescat in Pacem, Michael Wolfe
Farewell Tom Clark, thank you for the many years your blog has been a vital and portentous force for creativity and sagacity in my life.
“Upon a high star our course is set, our end is life, put out to sea.”
"Witnesses are: the Thursdays,
The shoulder bones, the loneliness, the rain, and the roads..."
Thank you for this blog, Tom Clark and Angelica Clark. It's the most beautifully assembled and presented piece of internet work I've ever seen. There are people all over the world who are thinking of you, your lives in Berkeley and your work. We love you both. x
- Jeremy Hawker aka Artur Crown
So sorry to hear he's gone. Really loved this blog and his work. He will be missed. My condolences.
I will miss Tom and his blog. Tom was a light in this world.
I'm really missing Tom's content, being able to pop in to see what he's written and reported, the photography from around the world and through time. So, I'm wondering if it is at all possible that some of his friends and followers here might have some suggestions for other blogs that follow in the style of Mr. Clark? I know those are big shoes to fill. Thanks.
So sorry to find out you're gone Tom, your blog was a huge centring for me...
Pariah,
There is nothing like this blog and nobody out there even remotely resembling Tom Clark. You could look at a stone or a feather or the sky and get some sort of feeling from these of the magnitude of what Tom and Angelica have accomplished. You could buy his books and encourage others to do so, give them as gifts and such and study them. This blog could be seen as a companion to his books. You could search and search the comments left and the posts (as I do) and listen to clips and music to get a feel for what happened because this is an archive, an encyclopedia of what is possible in poetry and in art and writing. Still, this blog was and is a process and generously vulnerable to a great extent in that it shows Heart and Mind working on Poetry and poetry on a daily basis with much humor and anger. Also with many expressions of humility, futility, and love. You need a lot of water to swallow this bitter Tom Clark pill. The water joins the river inside your body and takes you to regions known and unknown.
Where else can this be found? Traces, tracks, and trails are in the writers, artists, and musicians found here. Paths and inroads are seen in the current events, and documentation of war, devastation, and also images of beauty and hope. You can find something like this blog by experiencing our world and life, but it takes a great artist to wrestle with the vast and show us the slice.
I have lived my life alongside this blog and it has been a lot less lonely because of the work here. This is a unique artwork as a whole and each post unlike anything else existing.
Thinking of everything today. Missing.
death
is the unheard
voice of life
when our eyes are washed
open into a new understanding
and our steps are dragged
astray into a new path
simorgh of truth dwells
on top of the ghaaf of our hardships
© nooshin Azadi
(feburary 17, 2017)
tom, you will live forever... with and without us... always in the consciousness of our cosmos... creating, guiding, building new moments which will expand into new levels of awareness...
Beautiful memorial reading for TC last Sunday. I was glad to be there and the sun was out afterwards, in the street; an endless, golden California light. Too good to be true but it was.
One year ago today Mr. Clark made his last post here. Being a creature of habit I still pop in on occasion to check for new posts, even though I know there won't be. I miss you, Mr. Clark, and hope that wherever you are you found peace. Much metta to all who followed Tom, knew him personally, and his family. Especially to his family.
We are all Tom Clark.
Tom,
I am being called into a disciplinary meeting for using Brawny cloths to clean the chalkboards at work. I wish you were here to have a laugh at my expense.
Actually, Pariah, we aren't. Not at all. Not all him. He was unique, as you are. I know he liked the idea of One Mind and all. Is this what you mean? Probably! We are wannabes at best. I speak for myself.
Post a Comment