Thursday, July 7, 2011

All Ears











































































































     Being a poet
you're constantly in source of the origins.
There is no other bell to tinker with.
There is only the finished sound you make
as you make it—all else
is duplications of it.
The wit,  swell & well
of the words as they, origin, out
flow,
come out of there like out of a hole.
You rhyme it or place a dime on it
but you dont
tinker with it —
you let the bell sound
sounding it as you do
which is the pulling-apart mystery
of all that you do
that you carry around with you
when you're not playing it.
You are a poet when you arent being a poet
once you are a poet.
It hangs on your face
and meditates on your breast.
You remain unpublished
as long as you do
because the source of poetry has
nothing whatsoever to do
with publishing itself —
that is an artificial invention
of the printing press.
The source of poetry has
nothing whatsoever to do
with making money.
That is why it is so admired
and feared
by those who can do nothing
but rake in money.
That is their only vested interest —
making money
and that which is so pure
and sings so shamelessly of itself
goes by them as
a threat to their own
way of life —
it is so urgent of itself
what they hear of it.
Poetry is so
urgent of and through itself
as it comes,  inspired, out
out on top of itself and the voice, glottal,
poet voices on the paper out to
the few in contact,
the utterance of itself
in mutual friendship—
the sheer delight in knowing it exists —
that's what I am
when I concentrate from the waist down
and sing from the belly up
the art and aardvark of these sounds
the Zorastrian delight of
its wings
its current day
happenings,
the ritual of its founding
the finding of its saying
once and for all this
is poetry this this
is poetry I am
the poet of its voice
speaking I am
the poet of myself
speaking, go on song sing
yourself off
naked
sing out sing on
the wording bark out
off the amplified
sound of a larynx
barking
melodious as speech isnt
the wording voice of workaday weaving
into the talk that is melody
song-word songs.
I am the voice
I am.
The poet knows
only
the poet at the ear of
the source
knows —
what is coming
what they are hearing
as they are hearing it.
Ears don't lie when eyes see first—
the hearing of the center which says only
what it says,
is visible only
to the voice
the risk of
hear-saying it
hearing, you see it,  say it.
Say it you hear it see it.
The mirror of life is
saying it again
long after you've gone from
the image of life
long after you know
what you're doing.
The voice remains
there
and voices of
the community of poets
we are saying it infinitely
who identify the same source
which is multifarious as science
and can show up in any
neck of the woods —
the vibration of spring
coming —
coming,  it came out
to save the world
or save the saying of it
from saving the world
as it does what it does
at dawn
at the shaking of the earth
at spring
the yellow crocuses first
the iris reticulata
the crown imperials
bursting out of the ground
like rams horns meeting
with a clash.
The quiet that follows
anything as noisy as that
is serene.
What is a pastorale without a flute
or at least a French one,
the peace of a quiet French song—
or here a night song
like spring in words
cinco de mayo
victory for what we are
in the quiet confidence of self.
Of ourselves
gained
slowly
here
poem hung on garden gateway
quickly
here
confiding
only what it talks of
up and through itself.
It threw itself up and through
itself
threw itself out
of my eyes recognizing
that old voice on the page.














/5May81
(holograph copy of the original manuscript)
larry goodell / placitas, new mexico

This poem hung (by way of 2 eyeholes) downtown in an Albuquerque United Artist exhibit in the 80's.


page 5 of the orginal writing on 9 1/2 x 12 1/2 sheets, showing the curve 
I was faithful to . . .


































lg / 1981



Tuesday, July 5, 2011

The Disturbed Hiatus & The Hill (2 poems using the same object)

(Larry reading this poem which is fun to make & do: disk 18",  hole abt 7", put copy of poem & directions on back)

The Disturbed Hiatus


Right in the middle of everything he dropped everything         (drop & catch)
Until everything was the Sun turning around the Moon
And then the planets turning around the Sun
Until everything was everything again
And he picked it up and looked at it
It was a disturbed hiatus, a nervous pause               (shake it)
A vibration in space, a tingling in the fingertips
It was himself in the very middle of himself
His navel, a bagel, a doughnut, a hole                         (hold over mouth)
He played with himself there until he
Dropped it again                                                            (drop & catch)
And he rolled around it and expanded into space
On one side     and another.                       (hand on one side then another)
He was in the middle     he was in the middle            (hand framed thru hole)
He was in the middle     he was in the middle
Threatening to be connected again     that's why he was nervous   
                                                                           (stick  hand out thru hole, retract)
Threatening to be connected again     that's why he was nervous  
                                                                            (stick hand out thru hole, retract)
Threatening to be connected again.              (stick hand way out thru hole)


larry goodell / placitas, new mexico / mid 60's


simply part of the poem






poet's side with poem attached












on the wall is Bruce Lowney's lithograph of the hill we see out our north window































The Hill


the hill that comes up thru the Calendar     is the tip of me     rooting down
planting in the planning     the divisions of labor
how do I find the key to fit his pleasure     wanting more as
more sinks out under me     & the Hill in arch time     piƱon     & juniper
rises thru the slow breakage of the crafty art scene    
                                                                   tearing those curtains down
exposing bare windows &     the apocryphal dawn     the hill behind the house
the house behind the man     the man behind the garden    
                                                                   the garden in the village
the hill behind the village     the morning that we share carrying off with the hill
the petroglyphs that climb the ridges of those hills     & meet where
the dawn vision meets with the clan     the eye where men meet    
                                                                   in ships from the mother ship
in stormings of the border     in blue space union    
                                                                   & fight die spill down washes all apart
& meets to come up with     the hill in rising morning    
                                                                   the man behind her wandering where
she gave us all the pleasure     to know in her stroke     cupped     hand is it    
                                                                   arm of God
covered with the fine hair where I see him stirring    
                                                                    larger than the life I live entering it
to come where I carrying her     float in the middle     the calendar surrounds &
turns from the hill down doorways     out the garden door     adobe
in & out her lock     pleasure & key     the hill goes knowing out the village     & me
the man in wide band follows out the messages     out of the book &
into her hand.


larry goodell / placitas, new mexico / Spring 1973 / from The Book of Ometeotl,
last performance book in the Ometeotl Trilogy . . .Bruce Lowney did this  lithograph
of the hill when he was living in Placitas . . . 

Monday, July 4, 2011

American Stanza

Larry reading from American Stanza at home,
in background is Ken Saville's Tossing the Bone cross.

Dont be a humble haiku 
stretch your feet out 
become an American stanza 
we still have something to do with art 
be one of us 
become
big inspite of yourself 
broadcast large
make money off of your many words 
become the rolling American stanza 
that is studded with products 
and still loves the land 
the Western version of it
where one slow roll of a hill disappears almost
into a ribbon of road
as you drive     and drive
and know you're not in the big city
that you're large and flat
and too big for one page
too roaring, too specific,
too car oriented   too bound to the daily clock of money 
as you value your job and if you dont have one 
try not to feel guilty
as we enter a major stage of pessimism
both in and out the city
and your words and loops of phrases
sing through the air and catch the horns
of the ghost on the prairie
yanked along into song
too enormous for a haiku
too full of problems
too necessary
too grounding
the rolling out aloud bark and welcome 
getting down to deeds like
putting on a roof      and balancing hammer & nails as you walk 
tiptoe between the possible falls
and get it up
to persist,  native ingenuity is all there ever was
to stretch this country out to any sense
to give it form
large    and difficult
trite    and straight
to learn the old again
for the first time
having always before
been new
the old ingenuity to make do 
and get us out
get this line out of its chains again
its remains 
its slow death 
and rest,
its stretching out into a new fate.

"stretching out into a new fate"
larry goodell / placitas, new mexico / 19Dec82, winder solstice
this duende broadside is on 2 sheets legal seconds, duende press

Friday, July 1, 2011

And Rain






May the wind come in with snow & sleet & rain & hail    all blustery wet    with the Gonads of God grunting in orgasm 
all blustery wet downpour the rain come tilt & fall

Rain Avenue    Rain Wonder    Rain Everywhere    Rain On In An    Rain Un Un Un Inning    Rain Inning    Rain Water One    Watering Rain    One Watering Rain    One Ottering    One Offering    Rain Offering    Rain Any way you take it    Two Can

Rain any way you run    Run an    Two Tuck an    Rain On in an    Rain Tuck In    Rain Tack Tap on    Rain on    Rain down on    Down on drain    Rain street    Lane    Rained    It rained    It will rain.




larry goodell / placitas, new mexico / from Dry Water, poems 2003
AND RAIN: this is about 2 feet long by 4 inches wide . . . and of course hangs with the lines flowing down . . .

Followers!