tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post6965286373495066853..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: Wooden Boy: SeascapeUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-67615136964097829832012-10-01T14:16:09.782-07:002012-10-01T14:16:09.782-07:00Merewif's Lake
Small sea
of danger
so salty ...Merewif's Lake<br /><br />Small sea <br />of danger<br />so salty and strange<br />nothing will grown<br />on its banks<br /><br />no distracting brush<br />at Walker Lake<br /><br />not really a lake <br />at all<br />nor refreshing.<br /><br />Some place to look<br />look and look.<br /><br />The dry ancient shoreline<br />of nothing nothing<br />memory of a once-commanding ocean.<br /><br />Lake Tahoe positively Paradise<br />and deeper blue<br />comparatively<br /><br />with no disturbing<br />pull<br />so heavily down<br />and a river lined<br />with cottonwoods<br />the bullheads hidden<br />where the horney toads roam<br />freely and pinenuts are prized.Susan Kay Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16277139119869470939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-17697815153514469122012-10-01T04:21:51.830-07:002012-10-01T04:21:51.830-07:00Oh, yes, women's hair. My favorite. Also in L...Oh, yes, women's hair. My favorite. Also in Lichtenstein. I love this. Nin Andrewshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12643167108589844026noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-40604403373757559272012-09-30T17:03:56.600-07:002012-09-30T17:03:56.600-07:00("...but there was no missing this beast.&quo...("...but there was no missing this beast.")TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-36317473134326383592012-09-30T16:10:24.531-07:002012-09-30T16:10:24.531-07:00For Old English majors in the party... and speakin...For Old English majors in the party... and speaking of beasts:<br /><br />The merewif is the hero Beowulf's worst bad dream. After he slays the monster Grendel, <a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/Stories_of_Beowulf_water_witch_trying_to_stab_beowulf.jpg" rel="nofollow">Grendel's mother, the dragonesque water witch or merewif</a>, bent on exacting vengeance, attacks the mead hall. Beowulf is assigned the job of dealing with her. No easy business that. No sooner has he entered her realm -- the lake, or mere, over which she presides as merewif -- than he finds himself being rudely dragged into her lair. Some hospitality! thinks Beowulf. Great bother ensues. Just as the hero is on the brink of giving up the ghost, he glimpses a sword twinkling there in the darkness of the mere. He seizes it and uses it to lop off the head of the merewif.<br /><br />(Manners left something to be desired, in that period.)TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-15143202233049014852012-09-30T15:05:41.737-07:002012-09-30T15:05:41.737-07:00We had a copy of The Water Babies (illustrated by ...We had a copy of The Water Babies (illustrated by Arthur Rackham) that had been my father's as a child. A few wisps of merewif hair flowed through those pages..<br /><br />The first photo seems to have been taken not so far from where the Wooden Girl and I were staying. <br />The Royal Navy does an awful lot of training out in those waters.<br /><br />Those ships are the most beautiful and monstrous threats. They're painted in such a way as to reduce visibility, but there was no missing this beast. It was there for two days, the occasional turnabout for life signs. <br /><br />These seeming automata that play out an uglier game than chess...<br /><br />The Klimt is just right; unstoppable flow. Fishblood is a remarkable title.<br /><br />Thank you, all.Mose23https://www.blogger.com/profile/01100756913131511440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-42237394006975165982012-09-30T14:58:29.419-07:002012-09-30T14:58:29.419-07:00(Nevada) water babies are only (safely) in Nevada&...(Nevada) water babies are only (safely) in Nevada's Pleistocene lakes. Just be careful when you swim in these ancient seas, you could be pulled down by your legs and eaten. Their faces are greenish-bluish and they have sharp teeth.Susan Kay Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16277139119869470939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-14015755449982502972012-09-30T14:40:08.780-07:002012-09-30T14:40:08.780-07:00Even more depressing than looking at these beautif...Even more depressing than looking at these beautiful merewifs is to be compelled to add chili peppers to your own university teaching (even if it's only community college) evaluation hotness scale. That's what your poetry desperation came to before (or after?) starting your blog about teaching, posing as a detective, privately/publicly investigating the poetics of any given situation.Susan Kay Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16277139119869470939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-28999123437400119192012-09-30T14:29:26.401-07:002012-09-30T14:29:26.401-07:00The ones living in Pyramid Lake are not so innocen...The ones living in Pyramid Lake are not so innocent as that little tyke. I am afraid to report that the merewif are not their moms. Susan Kay Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16277139119869470939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-65794342388460670632012-09-30T14:23:11.448-07:002012-09-30T14:23:11.448-07:00One recalls that the bottom of the sea always look...One recalls that the bottom of the sea always looked cartoon vast to the <a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/humility.html" rel="nofollow">Water Babies</a>.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-16085368944205214582012-09-30T14:15:47.336-07:002012-09-30T14:15:47.336-07:00"...cartoon vast..."
Large and small at..."...cartoon vast..."<br /><br />Large and small at the same time.<br />My energy spent on these two words<br />on reading the space<br />between them<br />up and around their shapes<br /><br />I see a dot on the horizon<br />it is a floater in my eye<br />it is a ship a rock a whale<br /> immense interesting<br />oldSusan Kay Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16277139119869470939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-11436967053253321112012-09-30T14:03:47.289-07:002012-09-30T14:03:47.289-07:00I wish I could write a poem as good as Hazen's...I wish I could write a poem as good as Hazen's L.A. slippery slide, one millisecond as good as Clark's furry sleepwalkers, as exotic as Vassilis Zambaras' classic outlook, as melted as Wooden Boy's, as pert as Chant's, as intellectual as Andrews', as lingual as Sandra's, as dropped as Curtis', as famous as the incognito clickers and as cormorant as Ratcliffe's. Artemesia=mirror.Susan Kay Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16277139119869470939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-805858973813552922012-09-30T13:50:54.477-07:002012-09-30T13:50:54.477-07:00gold grey gold
see this cloudy
gilt on the gates
...gold grey gold<br /><br />see this cloudy<br />gilt on the gates<br />in English places<br /><br />what about<br />the hedges, the heath<br />the oak, the Linden<br />where is the space-time portal?<br /><br />no place for owls<br />although they are there<br />guarding the entrance<br /><br />to the sea<br />always back to the sea<br />in England.Susan Kay Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16277139119869470939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-17718636709699108242012-09-30T13:46:34.944-07:002012-09-30T13:46:34.944-07:00Very quantum poem! Your metaphors move alternately...Very quantum poem! Your metaphors move alternately from expansions to contractions to the 'wave.'<br /><br />Shadows to mass to the metamorphosed waves,radiant streaming of crearive emergy. Klimt's calligraphy for the feminine. . . the flowing hair, the cosmic waves; the sea as merewif, consumer and transformer. <br /><br />Lovely, subtly powerful poem. Artemesiahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06120821017998835883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-61145319459869955512012-09-30T13:38:53.785-07:002012-09-30T13:38:53.785-07:00"shade gathered to mass"
This is dense...."shade gathered to mass"<br /><br />This is dense. This is dark matter. Unthinkable. My mind cannot bend this. It is so understated and dramatic. Wow. This is too much. Love it. A drug. Nobody could take much more of this without od'ing.Susan Kay Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16277139119869470939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-1808211423523586362012-09-30T13:31:49.313-07:002012-09-30T13:31:49.313-07:00"a bowl of syrup light"
I want to drown..."a bowl of syrup light"<br /><br />I want to drown in<br />although said to be a good swimmer<br />I would forget breathing<br />and collapse my little lungs<br />into the melthing of this--<br /><br />where in a dream<br />the poet cautioned sternly:<br />"no rock-n'-roll in your poem"<br />I take this to be a warning<br />a caution <br />about the rumored undertow<br />from one who walked <br />away from the tracks<br />without heavy looks<br />and with them.Susan Kay Andersonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16277139119869470939noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-62530737028012897502012-09-30T07:48:56.702-07:002012-09-30T07:48:56.702-07:00Re. the merewif, with her limitlessly spreading ha...Re. the merewif, with her limitlessly spreading hair:<br /><br />"[Klimt's] joyful creatures surrender themselves freely to the watery element as it bears them swiftly downward on its unchanneled course. We see here what will soon become a major preoccupation of Klimt -- one he shared with other art nouveau artists: woman's hair. The flowing tresses in this case mediate the sinuous bodies to the powerful thrust of the water. Klimt's women are at home in a liquefied world, where the male would quickly drown, like sailors seduced by mermaids." <br /><br />-- Carl Schorske, Fin-de-Siècle ViennaTChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-72033296795348857542012-09-30T07:44:12.331-07:002012-09-30T07:44:12.331-07:00Tom,
"And always further out"
Meanwhil...Tom,<br /><br />"And always further out"<br /><br />Meanwhile, fog against ridge this morning, as usual, and suddenly it was gone, golden of sun rising behind stand of eucalyptus across mesa, now heading further and further south.<br /><br />9.30<br /><br />grey whiteness of fog against invisible<br />ridge, song sparrow calling from branch<br />in foreground, sound of wave in channel<br /><br /> limit of thought that which<br /> stops, that something<br /><br /> frame that made the picture,<br /> turning to, that view<br /><br />grey white of fog reflected in channel,<br />cormorant flapping across toward ridge <br />STEPHEN RATCLIFFEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12339481653546188412noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-13284068903426463522012-09-30T07:40:49.289-07:002012-09-30T07:40:49.289-07:00A fine poem, beautifully illustrated.A fine poem, beautifully illustrated.Jonathan Chanthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03647746685252448938noreply@blogger.com