Oh Fertile God

you can hear this read here

Thank you Fertile God.
Oh the gods of the ocean expanded

into the clouds for the garden gods

oh the garden gods the dancing gods of

            the earth of the other earths

            of the many earths of many

                        universes

                        all singing

                        from the mouths of the oceans

                                    clouds and gardens

                        farms and forests

                        mouths of the singers

                                    the birds and lions and panthers

                                    and buffalos & wolves

                                    and elephants and opera singers

                                    and folksingers

                        and everybody in praise for the

               good in the good days

               the good in the bad days

the good ways in bad times

the everything that is, that we who can

work on better:

oh the great enjoyment begins at

                                    any age

as old Fertile Gods you come up from

this Earth, as always you have and will

as the roaring goddesses and mindful

            pleasures of the whole earth

            manured, turned over, furrowed, planted

            as we all sing out

            in speech ways

            in words of the language of all earths

            all earths everywhere

            we work for our food in precious ways

                                        you give us

mindfulness is your dance

                        in the vibrating atoms, harmonious booming

            with salsa backdrop as the tropics elate

            the richness of orchids perfumed and night

                        of foreign moons

            we visit on all Earths

            we relate in our singing how

            singing makes it work and work to play

and harvest

our voices in

the mantle of tropical heaven

here on Earth

as all heavens are only

here on earth.

We weave to be true

in the dance to you

oh Fertile God

            of all the Earths
Thank you.






larry goodell / placitas, new mexico
from To Hell With Mumbo Jumbo, poems 1998

back of reading performance copy (what audience sees)

       

back of reading performance copy,
what the audience sees . . .

text side of performance copy

List of “Thing” Development in Larry Goodell's Poems

reading performance from the Staff of Ometeotl, poems with cloth backings, photo by Wayne Jones

"pizza" storage boxes for items needed for presenting certain poems

Note: this is basically a guide to me to get down the chronology of the development of my poems
which often have materialized (at time of writing) a picture of the thing which I then later had to make by hand in order to use in the presentation of the poem. I will add illustrations to this list as time goes by to remind me when I did various things other than reading from a poem to an audience.

“Cycles,” a long poem on a paper loop to be read and finished anywhere, 15Oct66  (published in Cycles, 1966)
✬
(A New Land, a novel, to be read aloud, 1967-68.)

✬13 Halloween poem on 13 IBM cards to be shuffled & read. Oct 67.

✬A Bag for the 6 Directions, Nov67.
A one-liner on each of six cards, the cards placed in an empty room, one on each wall, floor & ceiling. Rodey Theater Reading 3 Nov67



✬Wherever She Blows at Old Town Studio March & April, 1968.
“Theatrical Poetry - Mime - Mixed Media” by the Universal Mind Dance.
At one point poems on paper torn apart as being read.


"Iris Leaves" & "Off-Center" calligrams, May68. drawing/diagram/poems


✬Making It 15May68, Larry Morris’ class, 68. stacked boxes with 7 different “definitions”
of poetry acted out by poet & audience



✬The Fool 21May68, Steve Rodefer’s class. poet acting out aspects of human history silently while audience read texts from cookbook to poems on scrolls & objects.

"The Fool." Poet Larry Goodell (pictured above) reads in the Kiva this Wednesday at 7 p.m. Taylor Mead, of Andy Warhol fame, has said of Goodell, "he's an Aztec Goddess that makes me feel like a Grecian Urn." A life-long resident of New Mexico, Goodell is editor of Duende Press and also of the local poetry magazine Fervent Valley. His reading is free, courtesy of the ASUNM-GSA Poetry Series. 

(Trip to Mexico Jul68, Pre-Columbian Adventure)

Word Mandala Sep68.
Magic Box #1 & #2, Amulets, Sep68.

The Staff itself (6 ft cottonwood) materializes 1Nov68.

✬The President, 13Nov68, New York House, Placitas. “Event” poem enacted in Placitas with
masks & texts for the participating audience.

✬The News, 29Jan69, University of Albuquerque, shuffle poems read from painted oatmeal boxes.

(1st Garden, Apr-May69)

Holy of Holies, June69 (unfinished)
Headband – thing and words, Jun69. Poem written for the preparation of a headband.

✬NWSE Up Down Center, Aug69-Nov70, UNM. collaboration of Lenore Goodell drawings set out on floor and poems by me as I moved around to the directions. published in Caterpillar 13.

✬Paho, Mar70. Poem with each line hanging from a string wound around paho, unwound and read as unwound. UNM

Wind Unwind Poem for Lenore

✬Great White Brother, Oct70 – Dec70. Harvest mask, staff, balloon, infinity sign on forehead,   FART the name of God. Gray mask in dream, Yellow snake in Olson dream.

I am an animist.

✬Space Helmet headress poem, Jan71.
Hand movement to cunt-bush poem drawing.
Poem of pumpkin with pumpkin aura seen & drawn & turned into headdress to present the poem

✬Sun disk with poem on it, with snake headdress, willow necklace, & Babylonian sun priest robe, and drawing of upper “middle class” couple.

some contents of one storage box

Digging sticks poem. Hands touching & poem.
✬Song, Arrow Cloth Poem to Lenore with beans & seeds in it.

✬Rolled up Poem in a bottle to be unrolled at time of reading and placed on the ground.
Tunnel object sighting poem. “Delight.”
✬Christmas Cupidoll poem with rattles & chant.
Tree ornament poem.
✬Om Phallus Cunt Ease, poem for a birth, with spider woman & twins cottonwood root carved figures.
(Winter Solstice in Kiva/Hogan, 1970)
Poem to be Burnt, 19Jan71
Onion in white box, 7Feb71
Dead White Christian, 16Mar71 (poems with drawings only)
✬Poet’s Curse Poem (beating rock with sticks) 12Mar71

✬Staff of Ometeotl
poems with elaborate cloth backings & hung on cottonwood
staves, with oval magic box-table with compartment of masks & needed items for specific poems in the series.

✬Bowl of Ometeotl. even more elaborate with large hanging backdrop of cloth Sandias,
several costume changes and all poems on different shaped backing. Cloth arcs with stuffed yoni-lingam in the middle on floor.

✬Book of Ometeotl. attempt to return to the “book” with poems with furor necessary accouterments.

✬Blue Spaceman, Apr-May73. with procedural statement, large round cloth covered blue box with breast cover & dangling fish. inside are masks & muscle shirt (made for me by Lenore), and 7 dildos different lengths with silk condoms.

✬Face of Velma  (unfinished) Dec73-Feb74
✬The Garden of Ourselves, 26Apr-27Jul74

✬Mom Dass, 13Aug74. Poem with wig and dress and hand-held mirror with poem on back.

✬Dried Apricots, Dec74-Jan75. Several booklets, one a play, one secret only for men.

✬Hot Art & Other Plays
Alfalfa, 5Oct75, Left & Right 12Oct, Captain Armor 14Oct, Hot Art, Body Palace 21-22Oct, The Football Game 24Oct, A Fifth Apart, 23Jan76. Several performed at the Vortex Theater in Albuquerque, directed by Ned Sublette.

✬Clothesline with clothespins to hang and pin poems to for reading at an event reading.
Set of poems on large scrolls that are water colored on audience side with poem on reading side, hung from clothesline.

Poems cut out according to their shape on the page and appropriate designs water colored on back.

(to be continued)
 larry goodell / placitas, new mexico

more storage, box poems masks, muscle shirt, radio mask etc.

Larry in a reading performance of the Bowl of Ometeotl in the Thunderbird Bar, Placitas, New Mexico 1972