Insert Snappy Title Here

[Blythe]

thanks bop, for reading and commenting.

[Blythe]

Who knew Romans were so fucking wild?
Nymphs of the italic forests
and their male counterparts roam the halls of kings,
imparting judgements and laws. Woman of the black poplar
prophetess of sacred books, keys like lightning strikes
dangle around her dress, her words, her wrists.
She gave wisdom in return for libations.
She dictates in diaphanous nakedness
the serious laws of kingdom; the king acts
as stenographer. A fine twist
of silk around her waist is all the clothes
needed for such an open soul. Would that our world
could take such notations. The sacred books
dip in and out of history, maybe to be found soon
by our own leaders. When they make cattle fertile
they’ll be called cruisers. What level of intimacy
do we allow our consorts? It depends on the weeks that have passed
with no advice. It depend on whether they melt
into saltwater springs upon our deaths. It depends
on the heights our clergy can jump
holding the sacred shield from future battles –
one is true, the other eleven false copies –
but all weigh the same, pull feet to earth
sacred inches. I feel we’ve lost some capacity
when we don’t separate our water gods from our wind gods
and their children are no longer our catechism.
We can barely keep our households of 4.5 straight.
How then, to rule a kingdom
so unruly, wild, wooly? The evidence of Faunus and his drunken brothers
would never be so quiet. This takes more digging. To Rome we go.

[5th column]

Hello Blythe

Kissing Kings contains an image / lines that I can't imagine reading outside of NaPo and I loved it: It’s sauce on the sausage / and I don’t know what I mean by that
The structure of levitation adds to the poem. I love the idea of magic as something resembling water. Lovely idea and a post NaPo keeper worth working on.
Magic Words - for me just needs a prune post NaPo to remove some of the internal dialogue. Some lovely images / ideas and the close is understated. Well done.
For Bucky was an enjoyable read. Especially this - the tell in the title / spoils nothing in the trick. A hint of tongue twister.

Great thread full of original images. Keep going. We're in the home straight.

[larryrap]

Hi Blythe,

These poems are difficult and ambitious; they feel grounded in seriousness and concern about the most basic questions - the nature of being, and where modernity lost its way. I admit to being baffled much of the time but it seems like such a cardinal inquiry that I feel compelled to reread and would welcome some commentary. I was surprised to find Burroughs among your references (in one of the strongest passages).
Leaping Priests has the aura of coming closer to answers, or the right questions. That excites me.
Magic Words is especially lucid. I love the last line.
Levitation utilizes the magic of form and that tool works on me, making it probably my favorite.
Daniel Trump is compelling storytelling, I loved it. I don't think it should end on a joke line.

Anyhow - bravo for a special thread.

[Blythe]

Hi 5th column - thank you for your kind words and encouragement. Much appreciated...this home stretch (as we say in Philly) is really the toughest...

larry, wow, you know your Burroughs! that is an obscure one. Thanks for reading closely and commenting!

[Blythe]

Imagine that an army bears down upon you.
From your fortress you watch the multitude
kick all the dust from the road into your eyes.
You feel the tramp of their feet
in your viscera; about to be sacrificed.
Where are your children? Fleet enough
to mount their horses and range the hills
that hold your stones. Last night this imagining
brought me high; tonight, I’m too tired.
Instead of battle, the army carries its wounds
into the core of your town, begs dignified rest,
clean water, kind eyes, an open hand;
if not, just time to set their bones and shattered skins.
Where is your daughter? You can offer
her settled skin to the new commander –
perhaps not the peace he thought he needed.

[larryrap]

Hi Blythe,
Oh I've read and reread Burroughs way too much for my own good.
Latinus is very fine. Wouldn't the instinct be to hide a pretty daughter from the new commander's greedy eyes?

[beeswax]

Hello Blythe. Thanks for posting the Wechter Caine’s poem. He makes no mention of the muse – just zen I think. For me recently it’s been a lot of mundane pencil point licking and stopping to look out the window at nothing that inspires me much. But back to your intriguing thread: I enjoyed the reminiscences of the girl who knew the younger Trump -- the Daniel that is – is he Donald’s doppelganger? I liked hearing the girl’s perspective – all the detail. Bucky I am familiar with his work – from the early 1980’s – grad school, so that ages me. He was prescient – concerned about the environment before it became mainstream fashion to be concerned about the environment. It’s good to see him in your poems. Your thread is challenging and enjoyable.

[Blythe]

larry - Latinus apparently married his daughter off to the defeated Aeneas, even though she was betrothed to Turnus instead. Quite a kerfuffle ensued. I've been trying to work with ideas of magic and myth - so often linked in our contemporary minds - in poems this month, and it has been inspiring for me. There's a lot of rough stuff in this thread, but I'm hoping to work on a lot of it over the next months, and I really appreciate your comments. They give me hope that it's not all just a waste of time.

beeswax - thanks for checking back in. Bucky Fuller has been an inspiration for many of my friends, though I've only dabbled in my knowledge. He was an amazing figure, though, and I find his perseverance and integrity especially cool. I like Elon Musk for his lofty ideas, and I think he's got Bucky-like potential, though too much success to make him a humble character. Anyway. Good luck. I hope something wild and wooly and inspiring happens by your window today!

[Blythe]

I. SalvAl
When she became manager of the thrift store, Malyk
hired me and Joe - mainly because I partied with the skaters
and Joe partied with me. Why we called it SalvAl I don’t know.

Mornings we’d order egg sandwiches
from the bodega next to China King.
Afternoons we’d take turns

smoking a joint in the loading bay. You could always find a roach
on the shelf back there, just in case. We always opened
late. We never racked out, the SalvAl term

for taking last week’s pink-tag items off the lines
before stocking this week’s bin full. We always skimmed
the register and we always took home piles of clothes

we didn’t need; I think longingly even now
of the collection of band t-shirts: Dylan and the Dead,
a red Aoxomoxoa with a cute little eyeball on it, a Mariner

harmonica on blue. I used to clean my glass pipe
after every smoke with my shirts, so little black flowers
bloomed where my finger swept around the bowl, gathering

ash and resin. Eventually
corporate or central or high command - whatever

they called themselves - sent a couple colonels
to see what the hell was going on
in the store they’d entrusted to the little black girl

from town. It was a pair of pears,
small-headed and plump-bottomed devotees,
married of course - once you make officer,

you can only marry another officer of the Army.
This was a point of great wonder for us

They cleaned the place up, they cleaned
us up, no more smoking on the dock
before morning deliveries, though the roaches

waited there for us to come back.

[Blythe]

I'm too selfish to kill myself
even when I know I'm a disappointment

What did the affectionate fox say yesterday?
kitsu! kitsu!
How about now?
kon kon!

All long-lived foxes
eventually wander by my window.
They always come
to show off their tails, and how
enlightenment looks in the fade of evening.

Every now and again
I see a ninko
before it sees me.

Mostly, they grab me first.

Late one night in the fall
I was walking home, when I met
an old man fretting the moonlight.
He turned here and there, he dug through
a pile of dry leaves by the bank of a pond, muttering
“I know it is here somewhere, where did I leave
that tail?” Then I saw in the cast of moonlight
he had left it with his shadow.

[Emilio]

World-Around (Bucky Magic #2) - I love the idea of bird fortunes, lost augury traditions. God omens through the living is fascinating, the flocks of birds, flight formations, etc. I’m sure there’s six more poems in this at least, through ant trails, hummingbird sightings, etc.
Leaping Priests – omen theme carried over, looking to the past to correct the future. I like the dominant female roles here, the nod to strong Rome.
Latinus - this captures well the scenario and dilemma Latinus faced with Aeneas’s army.
SalvAl (Part One of Something?) – I enjoyed this. Not only do I love thrift stores, I happened to speak with a friend today who’s a cosmetologist, and she was telling me that she and coworker lit up during their lunch break. In fact, they do every day! I love California. I’m sure there are ladies walking around with crooked eyebrows somewhere.
Yellow Always – I loved the tale of the tail of the last strophe.

Three more, Blythe!

Cheers,

[Arlene]

Hey, Blythe, Yellow Always -- thank you for introducing me to Wikifur [], where I learned the meaning of 'ninko,' and how perfect the poem is, from beginning to end. Best, A.

[Donner]

Hi, Blythe,

Using myth and magic is paying off.

"Who knew Romans were so fucking wild?" Now, that's the way to start a poem.

"Latinus" could be set in almost any century, its story is universal wherever there's war and conquering armies and daughters to pay the price.

"SalvAl" is what we'd call the Sally Shop around here. The story is compelling and well-executed and makes me want to know what happens to N and Joe in the future after they've been "cleaned up".

I must be getting old, I didn't get the references to "kitsu", "kon kon" or "ninko". (When I googled the terms, I got images of cute little anime-esque characters, those girls with huge eyes, fox-like creatures and a Japanese emperor from the 1800's.) Didn't spoil the poem for me, though, because like most of your work, it stands on its own.

Donner

[Blythe]

Hi Emilio, Arlene, and Donner, I greatly appreciate you coming to check in again! I'm glad the fox poem had something to please you. I am mildly obsessed with Japanese folklore, and its range and variety and (from a middle class gen-xer American perspective) weirdness. And I happened upon kitsune, I think after watching (for the 1200th time) the Fox's Wedding segment of Akira Kurosawa's Dreams, and it's so full and deep. Anyway, most of this seems to be placeholding for me to come back to later, but yes, this April has been fun. Losing steam for sure.