CPITS WORKSHOP POEMS, CAMP CAZADERO, 1983

Ideas from Lou Welch, Jack Grapes workshop

Step out onto the planet

Draw a circle hundred feet round

Inside the circle there are 300 things
no one has ever seen before

And maybe no one even knows about

How many can you write about?

Ever since I lived in the woods
I've had a passion for Mozart

Didn't you know he composed in the woods?

Grass collectively bends toward light

Crow feather sheen on labs room

Collision of relief on wood

Circular prisms of sunlight
parallel inversion

on delineated shadows of leaves on earth

Spoor tracks of trucks

Chicken wire roof, a net to catch sunlight
from falling too hard against the earth.

Wrinkled pachyderm skin
the arch of a limbo

Woodpecker delineations

Shadows of trees keeping them in check.

The leaves maiden journey through the air,
branch tips circling up to light,
breaking away from gravity.

Gentle blur of aqueous tale,
synchronization of grass and wind.
A jungle for thought.

Pattern of blowing desert sand
frozen within the plywood.

All those pillars of sand
locked within an oak,
frozen dreamtime in the Sahara.

LEW WELCH VARIATIONS, 1

Crack of wood elongated grain
shadow of paint
dark red resting on forest grass
curdled cream skies
white clouds floating on wood

Mozart asleep in the woods

"Ever since I lived in the woods,
I've had a passion for Mozart"
                      —Mary Norbert Korte

Grass collectively bends toward sunlight,
a grace note of on delineated shadows
this parallax conversion.

Circular presence of sunlight,
a repetition of melody weaving patterns,
beliefs maiden voyage through air.

Branch tips circling up to light,
breaking away from gravity,
a bird measuring these truths.
Woodpecker delineations
shadows of leaves keeping them in check
the trees asleep
Mozart in the woods

a wire backstop,
a net to catch sunlight
to keep its notes in check

From falling too hard against the earth.

Syncopation of grass and wind,
all the patterns of the Sahara
locked inside of a note.

Frozen time, delineated,
a jungle for thought

Mozart composed this wood.

I dreamed last night the evening sky
came up on the contact sheet
in the developing studio

All my dreams began as prints
white on black and the image
emerging from under the liquid plates,
coming up in the bath
like trees shedding snow.

611/11/1983

Murder by Faberge

To catch a chicken thief, 

you need to live in the hen house.

The clown runs through the forest, 

a knife in the back, 

as he scales the bridge. 

The clown falls into the swirling waters, 

where he floats toe up 

over the rapids and pays with his life. 

The knife throwers,

the twins Mishka and Grishka 

turn toward the arena.

The clowns eyes were wet 

as a Berlin winter.

Date may be wrong on these, it could be 6/25/1983

intellectual titillation 

   —to Patty Trucksaw and other writers

Stop your

Mind

We

Want

To get

Off.

Father's Day 

6/19/1983