White Rat Generation - Thataway Prints #5 - 1982

Blueprint edition, therefore it fades, thus "Thataway" by Lenore Goodell using Larry Goodell's "White Rat Generation" poem which is on pp.37-39 of Firecracker Soup, Cinco Puntos Press 1990 The blueprint is 31" by 13½"

Photograph by Lenore Goodell - Larry Goodell with rat mask, rat tail

reading "White Rat Generation"

Text of poem, for reading aloud, back (audience sees) and front.

"White Rat Generation," written November 1982, as in Firecracker Soup.

This poem came out of the intensified development and house building that picked up in the late 70's and became an onslaught in the 80's. For those of us here much earlier and used to the snail's pace change in and around the Village of Placitas, this feverish land grab and rapid development was a living nightmare. I read this poem whenever and wherever I could . . . once in front of some realtors involved in all this. It was all I as a poet could do living through the yuppie phenomenon and the Reagan years . . . thanks to Lenore for doing this "Thataway" print . . . always appreciative, lg.

Larry Goodell / Placitas, New Mexico

from Firecracker Soup, 1990

Scibbled Envelopes

Pretty Lanterns

When the airstream's on the hayload

          & the limb is on the tree

you can hang your pretty lanterns

          where my legs attach to me

we can take our gloves & stockings

          & arrange them on that tree

you can shake your pretty lanterns

          & light up the inner me

when we go all out & say so

          that the air is full of bees

summer's here & we're a partin'

          & we'll do what damn we please

but it's really not the springtime

          & the air aint full of bees

will you take your goddamn lanterns

          get them off my BVD's.

1991, from Larry's Songs
Pretty Lanterns is recorded on Ubik Sound's The Mad New Mexican

Curiously, for me, I just this minute discovered on the envelope 
these lines following the song.

Holy Terror

Holy terror stalks the advent 
of the coming of the Lord
when he’s lost his good right hand love
& lives by the crooked sword.

Larry Goodell

Roswell


Roswell with the Plains rolling out into the Eyes 
Eyes with the Plains rolling into the Bars 
Bars where the Cattle cross into the Heart 
Roswell where the Heart rolls out of the Bars 
Bars with no Bars but Photographers arms 
back from San Francisco talking of Pool 
no Table   no bars    no    way to find Home 
Home from I am Roswell with the Veins in my Arms 
Arms with the Plains rolling out of all Harm 
Harm where you know it alive the Baby cries 
Roswell with recorders & Plains with their Arms 
to be one   Born here   St Mary's ordinary cross 
Roswell with the Music   He cleaned it up 
Roswell with no name   He never saw his town 
Roswell never saw the town named from his name 
Plains arms roll never knowing where they came from
Philanthropy an old thing   naming from the Bars 
no Bars only Home to some 
trying to name   an artist 
who's really good   at home in his voice 
reading the names as they show up in the Plains 
Home   & Home again   a name in the Bars 
of Albuquerque Algodones Placitas home 
Roswell with the name nobody calls it a home 
Home it was & ever will be & be & be 
Roswell with the name where 
the flat    ness rolls out 
aflame in the ears    to die Roswell old home a poet born to hear what 
he hears   her sitting home   away in the tears 
he left here   to come back   a dozen years of solitude 
a chronicle of Paradise in trees they left to die
Artesian Roswell making making
empty clothes lines

I give you Silk Stockings for Yr Empty   Bars
I give you back Roswell with its empty Death Wish
I give you back what you brot me   Lines with a Stick
a Bat out of Carlsbad   a Bag of loose Cotton
a reaping raping raiding woman cursing with the Dry Plains
I give you a Letter   the Letter Z
Z for Zones   Z for Cattle Brands unknown
Z for my Home never found never wandering
A Ghost of the Lovely Host who ate his Solid Wafer
& blessed the Town to turn it back where its Hope was found once
when you let the newly found Artesian wells spill out their
Giant wealth   to give it in again   & take the People Hatred
Hiding in DeBremond Stadium where the Football games
pounded   it in   turn it in the Spring River   come back
flowing   flowing   in all the ways of fuck     again.

 Larry Goodell   (written on envelope at Wendell Ott’s 

in Roswell, NM, Sunday, 7Apr74)

She Got It Right


The Bible wrote a woman
to teach her how to be right*
but she wrote before the Bible
it never got it right.



Larry Goodell /6Jun91


First time best.

(Spicer
         "Dictation" . . . )

*"write" I wrote in but I prefer original
which is on an envelope from Eileen Myles.

Today I received the incredibly beautiful and precious book of Emily Dickinson's envelope writings, each envelope whole or scrap of it carefully photographed with the typed text provided, from New Directions & Granary Books & the benevolent Steve Clay, The Gorgeous Nothings, by Dickinson, an amazing display of creativity in the act put to convenient paper . . .

this gift generated this putting together a few things: the "Roswell" poem is somewhat important to me having been a spontaneous act on a visit to my home town when at a party in the artist Wendell Ott's home, the poem started and I had to find an unoccupied room and tore open an envelope to write on . . . when I've read this to a younger audience I've, against my heart, substituted "fuck" for "love" but the original, as almost always, has the say . . .

in making my work presentable (on computer and printed out) I am constantly going back to the originals in the notebooks or, in earlier years, folders by year . . . as that first take in time and place allows little or no change in a different time and place since that would be contrary to the impetus, at least for me . . . I've spent too many years beating the dead horse of my uninspired poetry trying to whip the dead into living, a hopeless and exhausting and wasteful task . . . thank you Robert Creeley for giving me the hand up and out and into my own voice and possible unpretentious expression . . . the sounds can go deep and wide when true, true to one's cooperative self.

for That's A Poem  which was written on napkins in a hamburger place in Shiprock, New Mexico, please see That's A Poem, from Napkin to Printed Page.

Larry Goodell / Placitas, New Mexico 3/14/2014
this post is for Steve Clay

D.A. Levy Reading in Cleveland: BERET: a concrete poem for the war monuments

BERET: a concrete poem for the war monuments (1967)

by D.A. Levy

The Cleveland Memory Project makes this 58 second video available. It's a bit difficult to hear clearly so I include the text (much longer than the recording). Here is the text of the poem which is available on the Cleveland site. The recording is only of the very first part . 

"This clip was edited and digitized from a newly discovered 16mm film segment originally shot by Dennis Goulden of Cleveland's WKYC-TV's vintage television series Montage as he and his crew captured scenes from the counterculture/hippie movement of the late1960s." 

D.A. levy Reading: May 14, 1967

_________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________

_________________________________________________________________________________
D. A. Levy

The Coventry Reader, 20 years after, celebration of d.a.levy . . . 
________________________________________________________________________________

Many thanks to the enterprising and dedicated Cleveland Memory Project for making Mr. Levy's work available. The diversity of both his poetry and his remarkable hand done publications was a great delight to me during the years I was exchanging publications with him and sending my publications to Jim Lowell's historic Asphodel Book Shop in Cleveland.

from the duende collection of d.a. levy publications

larry goodell / placitas, new mexico . . . links to my online work

Saint Kush at Cloud House - Walt Whitman Breathes Here - 1980

Cloud House by Richard Hack is a good quick survey of Cloud House history. Here is a photograph by C.R. Snyder from the article, 1959 open reading. (What I wouldn't give to see and hear Helen Adam, but in '59 I was still discovering what was going on in the open vitality of American poetry.)

A letter with flyers from Kush of Cloud House

Walt Whitman Breathes Here

"About 1854, age 35, just before the first publication of Leaves of Grass in Brooklyn.
Courtesy of the Duke University Library, Trent Collection."

Kush generously video taped a reading/performance I did in San Francisco when Marge Nesset was setting up performances there billed as "New Mexico Performance Poet & Wily Troubadour" (Loft Theater, San Francisco, March 6, 1991). If this video is around there was a piano there, very rare for me . . . Steve Rodefer was there with a new friend, Lenore was there and just about nobody else, but the poetry event proceeded . . . 

Cloud House Poetry Archives is essential to see with videos . . . from Penn Sound. Many thanks to Kush for your life of spurring poetry on and recording it. Kush is a Saint, yes, Saint Kush.

Larry Goodell, Placitas, New Mexico

Tribute to Peter Karassic, June 2013

Peter Karassik, sculptor, artist, spoon and useful object maker . . . left me with his imagination calligraphy on hanging banners . . . so in memory of that and in a bit of a tribute are these small pages from my current notebook . . . these dedicated to Peter.

*

7 Panels of Writing by Peter Karassik

ca 1969, Gift of the Artist

Karassik, 3 Panels (left)

Karassik, 4 Panels (right)

Karassik, 6th Panel (larger)

Peter these days, up in Oregon
Hello Peter! We love you and are forever grateful for your introducing us . . . 
it led to 45 years of marriage so far . . .
hello and love to you Lorraine!
larry goodell & lenore

A Poet Too

Am I a poet, a light weight, a semi-heavy weight, a know-nothing, a pretender, an almost, a middle-weight, a fluff, a reality, a songster, a magician (pretend), a bard of the ha-ha clan, a bad-ass performer, a heart-evangelist, a minstrel, a skald, a scop, a rhapsode, a wordist, a poetaster, a poetatoo, a word writer, a song writer, a lyracist, a diddler, a doddler, a doodler, a listener, a journal writer, a note taker, an improviser, an open-ear responder, a receptionist, a word-wrangler, a scribbler, a creator, a recognizer, a maker, a guy with a fountain pen and a notebook spending too much time at the computer . . . 

larry goodell / placitas, new mexico / 2013 08 01

Like a house balanced on the tip of your tongue, my poetry is self-contained to this place. 
Making things is my disposition, a carpenter of air.

larry goodell / placitas, new mexico / 2013 07 31

Iris and Iris, 2 Poems from 1977



This little booklet, hand sewn with yellow thread and cover bordered in gold pencil, came from early August of 1977, year of the NYC 25 hour blackout, Jimmy Carter pardoning the Viet Nam draft dodgers and announcing we must do something to counteract our massive oil consumption, and the year the World Trade Center was finished . . .  larry goodell

     The following poem, also for the goddess Iris (and her equivalents), is read left to right first line, right to left second line and on back and forth. The arrows will clue you which lines are to be read backwards. You can see it also in this parcel of broadsides from the 70's: 6 Broadsides from the 70's from duende press

I R I S

 

"I prefer the unknown." 

Jack Spicer  

Iris I cant find out anything about you but I love you and am yr wings

out fish I all is gods the of messenger intertwine we and mine are you or

of this cavern. I prefer to be alone & with you lightly bearing the snake stick

hair of flowers the off headband the kissing other each up & around coil we

falling down I pick up and fall down in you touch air which is yr purity

race up light up lit particles out burst speckled rainbow the of rain

the sky to the other end of the world together forever doing good to each other

soft count that ways little the ,way the pointing goods delivering

in yr soft hair I love you till the rainbow plunges in dark count of

.together cave the into us forcing us against down bearing rocket the 

There is no other way but the way of the unknown as you came to me

hair and face my washing morning the in up sun prism the from blinding

and lift to do the day, that way I know. "You do your poems!" someone

tickling earth of ends the as true ,friend a was it and me at shouted

between the toes where shallow rivulets fall down between me and the nearest friend

intertwine we and fly and direct but ask not do dear true only my you

vines up each other to the bloom of the first sunflower turning red to attract the hummingbirds

up me holding ,voice no ,earth no ,spaceless being ways our in set are we

the airy innards spilled out in the lay of love, the old singer’s voice

around dancing and alone other each on back splashing ,cracking ,clacking

counterclockwise on toes tipping up and off the earth forever.

　

/6August77

larry goodell

this is a duende press tattered old manuscript broadside was resurrected february 2006 as part of 6 Broadsides from the 70's using Issuu & Scribd. larry Goodell

Walking Hawk

pot with poem in it -
mix up strips (lines) and read

. long hair is a scaffold for blowing out yr brains

. a Nixon nugget is a nuxin Nigget

. Survival is kitchen napkin

. they want the most violent image to tear their tissue paper

. revolution is a dragass minority in rear

. it defeats the purpose not to be named

. it pops into yr head

. do you want another he said pouring charcoal out the sewer

. I cocktailed inefficient Sunday     rock     rock

. nematode is no toes

. flash on cards

. a heap of Sundays

. on cards

. freeflowing Tuesdays jacks yr diamonds

. change attire    retire

. going out on Sunday

. sundancers

. keep in towards

. leaping hinges

. a jack in time multiplies the dime

. reaches on Sunday

. what you can’t reach on Monday

. it’s terrifying what language does to him

. I am used     ill-used

. leaping high in vineyards

. language to put in a pot

. take it out on Sunday     & leave it there

. a make to brace

. a challenge for Europe

. old electric dildo     catching a snooze

. I’ll never make you on Tuesday

. make you mind

. I am out on Tuesday

. tie it all together with a mop & sop

. how many wafers do you have in yr corn

. donuts        donuts

. in each case there was a case to shake

. other than that it was stone pussy

. jack off backwards

. I come first    then play all day

. that is    your ferris wheel rocking

. knocking them off

. sugar towards   Christian hippies   knock them off

. a meeting on Sundays

. knock them off

. a meeting on Tuesdays     time to get up

. don’t go out     go out

. time to get out

. whack a steward

. this is not the first time     the first time

. I never slept with you

. are you minding yr puddings & yr pants

. don’t breeze off     too soon.

. a jacket on Tuesday  

. a meeting on Tuesdays

. rock my wind pardner

. a hanging cob justifies the brain

. you get too much money     for what you do

. his peter was up higher than his salary

. I’m not going to be pleasant     pleasant

. I’m going to fill this soap notebook up

. wipe yr ears clean

. adjusted images     a deviled pig

. where it’s at was where it rot

. don’t look at it 2 ways     upside down

. pick it up & lay it down along the pot

. images on Tuesday    Monday’s Sunday

. I’m red    you’re dead

. she comes itching out of her period

. periodicity is a dish for a period

. get up & ejaculate the dawn

. a rooster is a quick pulling hen

. my sex is yr sex     disaster

. playing with the trucks

. he done fuck himself with rapid cleanser

. a solid formation on the cup

. a releasing thru

. he cd hear the fly buzzing after it was dead

. the fly wasnt dead

. take it out on time

. the precious nowhere escapes me

. the face of Cain is the ass of Able

. are you able Tuesday

. Aaron is Monday     Tuesday is Sunday

. all school functions are decrepit

. a school is a walking hawk

. the hawk that walks

. he realized he cd go on forever so he stopped

larry goodell / placitas, new mexico

This was written 18th August 1972, with procedure "pot with cards in it – shuffle & read." For now printing the poem double or triple spaced and then cutting each line out with a paper trimmer works fine. The pot I'm using here I unearthed out on Rio Grande Blvd. in North Valley of Albuquerque when I was living there & teaching at the Academy For Boys (Albuquerque Academy). . . 

Notebook #14, back cover. I had finished the "Staff" a poetry performance piece and/or serial poem, and herein started on the "Bowl of Ometeotl" . . . . 

a page from "Walking Hawk" which is also in this NB.

I find it interesting to look at the full-blown original writings of a poem (any poet's poem), the notebook, the papers, the surroundings, the time and place, the "3 dimensionality" of the poem in specifics . . . to get a sense of the context and gift-offering of the poem . . .

love to all,
larry