a poem as long as California

PSYCHOANALYSIS: AN ELEGY

What are you thinking about?

I am thinking of an early summer.
I am thinking of wet hills in the rain
Pouring water. Shedding it
Down empty acres of oak and manzanita
Down to the old green brush tangled
in the sun,
Greasewood, sage, and spring mustard.
Or the hot wind coming down
from Santa Ana
Driving the hills crazy,
A fast wind with a bit of dust in it
Bruising everything and making the seed sweet.
Or down in the city where the peach trees
Are awkward as young horses,
And there are kites caught on the wires
Up above the street lamps,
And the storm drains are all choked with dead branches.

What are you thinking?










I think that I would like to write a poem that is slow as a summer
As slow getting started
As 4th of July somewhere around the middle of the second stanza
After a lot of unusual rain
California seems long in the summer.
I would like to write a poem as long as California
And as slow as a summer.
Do you get me, Doctor? It would have to be as slow
As the very tip of summer.
As slow as the summer seems
On a hot day drinking beer outside Riverside
Or standing in the middle of a white-hot road
Between Bakersfield and Hell
Waiting for Santa Claus.

What are you thinking now?








I’m thinking that she is very much like California.
When she is still her dress is like a roadmap. Highways
Traveling up and down her skin
Long empty highways
With the moon chasing jackrabbits across them
On hot summer nights.
I am thinking that her body could be California
And I a rich Eastern tourist
Lost somewhere between Hell and Texas
Looking at a map of a long, wet, dancing California
That I have never seen.
Send me some penny picture-postcards, lady,
Send them.
One of each breast photographed looking
Like curious national monuments,
One of your body sweeping like a three-lane highway
Twenty-seven miles from a night’s lodging
In the world’s oldest hotel.

What are you thinking?










I am thinking of how many times this poem
Will be repeated.
How many summers
Will torture California
Until the damned maps burn
Until the mad cartographer
Falls to the ground and possesses
The sweet thick earth from which he has been hiding.

What are you thinking now?

I am thinking that a poem could go on forever.

Jack Spicer



Forthcoming from The Collected Poetry of Jack Spicer
from Wesleyan University Press.

rain for roxy, whenever she wants it

I'M ONLY HAPPY WHEN IT RAINS

Im only happy when it rains
Im only happy when its complicated
And though I know you cant appreciate it
Im only happy when it rains





You know I love it
when the news is bad
And why it feels so good
to feel so sad
Im only happy when it rains


Pour your misery down, pour your misery down on me
Pour your misery down, pour your misery down on me

Im only happy when it rains
I feel good when things are going wrong
I only listen to the sad, sad songs
Im only happy when it rains

I only smile in the dark
My only comfort is the night gone black
I didnt accidentally tell you that
Im only happy when it rains

Youll get the message
by the time Im through
When I complain about me and you
Im only happy when it rains

Pour your misery down, pour your misery down
Pour your misery down on me
pour your misery down
Pour your misery down
pour your misery down
Pour your misery down on me
pour your misery down
Pour your misery down
pour your misery down
Pour your misery down on me
pour your misery down
Pour your misery down

You can keep me company
As long as you dont care

Im only happy when it rains
You wanna hear about my new obsession?
Im riding high upon a deep depression
Im only happy when it rains
Pour some misery down on me

Im only happy when it rains
Pour some misery down on me
Im only happy when it rains
Pour some misery down on me
Im only happy when it rains
Pour some misery down on me
Im only happy when it rains
Pour some misery down on me ...

Garbage

(don't miss tom hanks' version of 'singing in the rain'
in the movie punchline.)

the birth of clouds

THE SENSE OF THE SLEIGHT-OF-HAND MAN

One’s grand flights,
one’s Sunday baths,
One’s tootings at the weddings of the soul
Occur as they occur.
So bluish clouds
Occurred above the empty house and the leaves
Of the rhododendrons
rattled their gold,
As if someone lived there.
Such floods of white
Came bursting from the clouds. So the wind
Threw its contorted strength around the sky.

Could you have said the bluejay suddenly
Would swoop to earth? It is a wheel, the rays
Around the sun. The wheel survives the myths.
The fire eye in the clouds survives the gods.
To think of a dove with an eye of grenadine
And pines that are comets, so it occurs,
And a little island full of geese and stars:
It may be that the ignorant man, alone,
Has any chance to mate his life with life
That is the sensual, pearly spouse, the life
That is fluent in even the wintriest bronze.

Wallace Stevens

“The Sense of the Sleight-of-hand Man” from Collected Poems.
Copyright 1923, 1951, 1954 by Wallace Stevens.
Reprinted with the permission of Alfred A. Knopf,
a division of Random House, Inc. Source: Poetry (July 1939).

what a strange day.

at long last i noticed that japanese prints, in addition to only very rarely featuring shadows or reflections, as we've discussed before here and here and here, only rarely have clouds!, certainly never, until the shin hanga artists gave them birth, as sunset, billowing, nor multi-colored.

when clouds did appear, they were almost exclusively used to augment a painting of a mountain, an evidence of heights. the mountain were subject, and the clouds servants. certainly no images of clouds for the sake of the clouds, as one might often see waves for the sake of water.

so i found myself wondering: if shadows and reflections were not included because of their ephemeral nature, as we've read in several places now, then is perhaps the same true of clouds?

i could find nothing online nor in my books (what ever happened to indexing???!), so i decided to call "the experts." i tried tracing down curators of japanese prints at various museums, but when i found only dead ends, i started phoning dealers, some of whom are listed in the sidebar here, and essayists i know from online. and to a man (yes, deliberate usage) they said the same thing:

"its not true that there are few shadows or reflections in japanese prints!" "but but," i say, "what about the idea about excluding them because they're too ephemeral?" "where do you get these ideas?" (annoyed? angry?) "and then when shin hanga came along....," i struggled, clinging to straws. the final guy had the nerve to tell me i really needed to look at more than a basic ukiyo-e collection. had no idea whatsoever of what's online now,
not to mention on my bookshelves.

my index-less books, though, again were no help. which is why the gods invented the internet:

"Internal Light

"While van Gogh never specifically referred to optics, his remark that the Japanese "take reflections for granted" illustrates he was aware of the issue. The Sunflowers, Bridge at Arles, and the Harvest at La Crau, and the other images that painted that year all have something in common with each other and with the Japanese print. They convey a visual rather than an optical effect.

"What is the difference between them? As we saw, Van Gogh eliminated clair-obscure from his painting. Clair-obscure, of course, is the result of light, or, more specifically, light external to the picture. When he banned shadows from his paintings, and used flat, "artificial" colors, he also eliminated external light from the picture. The Sunflowers, just like the shadowless Japanese print, has neither a light source nor shadows. The light in the painting is "internal." By using color as an independent reality -- independent of optical perception -- it followed that the painting assumed an independent reality. The painting is no longer an optical facsimili of the visual world, it was a reality in its own right.

"The idea to treat a painting as a reality in its own right, of course, became the hallmark of the Modernist Revolution. The realization that a picture, before it is anything else, is an independent reality – a two-dimensional artifact – is still topical. Not only painting but contemporary electronic media are first and foremost two-dimensional, artificial media that are visually more expressive when treated as such. If contemporary Japanese imagery seems to have an unusually clarity, the reason is no doubt that the eye of the Japanese artists was never blurred, as it were, by the filter op naturalism. Esthetically speaking, Japan's traditional culture already possessed some eminently modern characteristics." 1

"Monet's early paintings show the influence of the flat planes of bold colour, asymmetric compositions, and telescoping of foreground and distant views with no middle distance – features characteristic of 19th-century Japanese woodblock prints.... Hiroshige's One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (1856-58) is characterised by its unusual viewpoints. Evening View of Saruwaka Street (1856) in the Kabuki theatre district of the city, with its European linear perspective and single vanishing point, is the most overtly realist view in the series. Its most unusual feature is Hiroshige's use of shadows, rarely seen in Japanese art, that produce an eerie quality." -- Colin Martin

"artists who worked the aforementioned style circa 1860, shows the integration of western stylistic elements, such as shadows and perspective, juxtaposed to the typical elements of the ukiyo-e." 2

so you tell me. what are these guys talking about?
like i said, the weirdest day!

A CAT A MAN AND TWO WOMEN (an excerpt)

SHOZO VIVIDLY RECALLED that time long ago when Lily had returned from Amagasaki. It was at dawn one day around the middle of autumn that the slumbering Shozo was awakened by a familiar "meow, meow.... " He was single at the time, and slept upstairs while his mother slept on the ground floor. The shutters were still closed at this hour of the morning; but somewhere nearby a cat was mewing, and as Shozo listened, half asleep, it sounded uncannily like Lily. They had sent her off to Amagasaki a whole month ago, so how could she be here now?

Yet the more he listened. the more it sounded like her. He heard the scratch and patter of paws on the tin roof outside his room at the back.... Now it was just outside his window.... He had to know. Leaping up from his quilts, he pushed open the shutters. There on the roof just in front of him, restlessly moving back and forth, was an extremely weary-looking but unquestionably identifiable Lily! Shozo, hardly trusting his own eyes, called hesitantly: "Lily."

"Meow,” she replied, looking up, her large, lovely eyes wide with happiness. She came to a point just below the bay window where he was standing; but when he reached out to lift her up, she slipped away, darting two or three feet in the opposite direction. She didn't go far. though, and at the sound of "Lily!" would give a "meow" and re-approach. Again Shozo would reach for her, and again she would slip from his grasp. It was precisely this aspect of a cat’s character that Shozo loved.

She must care for him, since she went to so much trouble to return. Yet, when she was safely back at her old familiar home and gazing up at the face of the master she hadn't seen for so many weeks, what did she do if he reached out for her? Run away. Perhaps, knowing his love for her, she enjoyed playing upon it like this; or perhaps she felt a bit awkward at their first meeting after such a long separation, and her shyness took this form. In any case, Lily kept on moving back and forth across the roof, replying with a "meow" each time Shozo called her name.

Right away he noticed how thin she’d become, and as he looked more carefully he saw too that her fur had lost its sheen of a month before. Her head and tail were covered with mud. and bits of pampas grass stuck to her here and there. The grocer who had taken her in was known to be a cat lover, so it was unlikely he would have mistreated her in any way. No, Lily’s pitiful state was obviously due to the “hardships of the road" she had suffered on her lonely journey back from Amagasaki.

She must have walked all night to have arrived home at such an early hour — but it was certainly more than one night’s journey. Night after night she must have walked, after fleeing from the strange house some days before. Losing her way, wandering down dark byways without knowing where they led. until at last she reached home....

The tufts of pampas grass proved that she hadn't come straight back along the highway, which was lined with houses and other buildings. How piercing the winds at dawn and dusk would have felt to a cat that, typically, disliked the cold. Besides. showers were common at that time of year, and she must have sometimes crept into thickets to escape the rain, or hidden in fields to evade pursuing dogs. She had been lucky to survive the journey. Imagining all this, Shozo wanted to hold Lily and gently stroke her, and so he kept reaching out to catch hold of her. Gradually Lily, though seeming still a bit shy, began to brush her body against Shozo's outstretched hands, until at last she let her master have his wish.

According to the owner of the butcher shop, the English called this particular type of cat a “tortoiseshell," and indeed the distinct black spots spreading with a lustrous sheen over the brown coat did resemble the polished surface of a turtles shell. Certainly Shozo had never had such a lovely cat before, with such a magnificent coat. European cats are generally free from the stiff, square-shouldered look of japanese cats; they have clean, chic-looking lines, like a beautiful woman with gently sloping shoulders japanese cats also usually have long, narrow heads, with slight hollows beneath the eyes and prominent cheekbones, but Lily’s head was small and compact. Her wonderfully large and beautiful gold-colored eyes and nervously twitching nose were set within the well-defined contours of a face shaped exactly like a clam shell placed upside down.

But it was not her coat or face or body that so attracted Shozo to this kitten. If it were only a matter of outward form, he himself had seen Persian and Siamese cats that were even more beautiful. It was Lily’s personality that was so appealing. When first brought to Ashiya, she was still terribly small, small enough to be held in the palm of one hand, but her wild tomboyish ways were just like those of a seven- or eight-year-old girl, a primary-school student at her most mischievous. She was much lighter than now and could jump to a height of three or four feet when her master held some food above her head during dinner. If he were seated, she could reach it so easily that he often had to stand up in the middle of his meal to make the game interesting. He began training her in such acrobatics from the moment she arrived.

From her kitten days she had a charming, lively expression; her eyes and mouth, the movements of her nostrils, and her breathing all showed the shifts of her emotions, exactly like a human being. Her large, bright eyes in particular, were always roving about; whether she was being affectionate, or mischievous, or acquisitive, there was always something lovable about her. When she got angry, Shozo found her quite funny: small as she was, she would round her back and bristle her fur as cats do; her tail would rise straight up and, prancing and pawing the ground with her little feet, she would glare fiercely at her foe. It was like a child imitating an adult, and no one who saw her could keep from smiling.

Nor could Shozo forget Lily’s gentle, appealing gaze when she first had kittens. One morning about six months after arriving at Ashiya, she started following Shozo around the house, mewing plaintively — she sensed she was about to give birth. He spread an old cushion in the bottom of an empty soft-drink carton and placed it at the back of the closet. Then he picked her up and carried her to her bed. She stayed in the box only briefly, soon opening the closet door and emerging to follow him about again, mewing all the while. Her voice was not the one he was used to hearing. It was still "meow," of course, but this "meow" had another, peculiar meaning to it. It sounded as if she were saying "Oh, what shall I do? I don’t feel well, suddenly.... I'm afraid something very odd is about to happen to me.... I've never felt anything like this before! What do you think it could be? Am I going to be all right?.... Am I?"

When Shozo stroked her head and said, "There's nothing to worry about. You're going to be a mother, that’s all." she placed her forepaws on his knee as if to cling to him, uttered one "meeoww," and looked at him as though trying her best to understand what he was telling her. Shozo carried her back to the closet and placed her in her box. "Now you stay right here, okay? You're not to come out. Okay? You understand?" Having made this little speech, he closed the door and started to stand up, when there was another plaintive "meeeoow." It seemed to be saying "Wait a moment. Don’t go away." Shozo melted at the sound and opened the door just a crack to peek in. There in the farthest corner of the closet, which was filled with a jumble of trunks and cloth-wrapped bundles, was the box with Lily`s head sticking out. "Meeooow," she cried, gazing at him. "She may be just an animal," thought Shozo, "but what a loving look she has in those eyes of hers!"

It was strange, but Lily’s eyes shining in the closet's dim recesses were no longer those of a mischievous little kitten. In that instant they had become truly feminine, full of an inexpressible sadness and seduction. Shozo had never seen a woman in childbirth; but he was sure that if she were young and beautiful, she would call to her husband with just the same pained, reproachful look as this. Any number of times he closed the closet door and began to walk away, only to go back for another look; and each time Lily would poke her head out of the box and peer at him, like a child playing peekaboo.

When Shozo heard people with no knowledge of a cat's character saying that cats were not as loving as dogs, that they were cold and selfish, he always thought to himself how impossible it was to understand the charm and lovableness of a cat if one had not, like him, spent many years living alone with one. The reason was that all cats are to some extent shy creatures: they won't show affection or seek it from their owners in front of a third person but tend rather to be oddly standoffish. Lily too would ignore Shozo or run off when he called her if his mother was present. But when the two of them were alone, she would climb up on his lap without being called and devote the most flattering attention to him. She often put her forehead against Shozo's face and then pushed as hard as she could; at the same time, with the tip of her rough little tongue she licked away at him — cheeks, chin, the tip of his nose, around his mouth — everywhere.

At night she always slept beside him and would wake him up in the morning. This too was done by licking his face all over. In cold weather she would insert herself under the top quilt near Shozo's pillow and then work her way down into the bedding. She nestled against Shozo's chest, or crawled toward his groin, or lay against his back, wherever, until she found a place where she could sleep comfortably. Even after finally settling down in one spot, she often changed her position if it became the least bit uncomfortable. Her favorite posture seemed to be to lie facing Shozo, with her head on his arm and her face against his chest; but if he moved even a fraction her rest was disturbed, and she would burrow off in another direction, looking for a better spot. Accordingly, whenever she got into his bed, Shozo had to extend one arm as a pillow and then try to sleep in an obliging way, moving as little as possible. So positioned, he would use his other hand to stroke that area of the neck which cats most love to have fondled; and Lily would immediately respond with a satisfied purring. She might begin to bite at his finger, or gently claw him, or drool a bit — all were signs that she was excited.

written by Junichiro Tanizaki in 1936.

while our artists seem to consistantly give us images of women with cats, the cat and human relationships i've seen in fiction often favor the man/cat bond. i've never forgotten this novella, and in rereading it i'm again amazed at the beauty and accuracy with which he draws his small friend and their friendship. if i recall correctly, he abandons both women for lily.


for more wonderfully related visuals, see here and here, and cat stories here.

the tabloid of scents

THE CAT'S SONG

Mine, says the cat,
putting out his paw of darkness.
My lover, my friend,
my slave, my toy, says
the cat making on your chest
his gesture of drawing
milk from his mother’s
forgotten breasts.

Let us walk in the woods, says the cat.
I’ll teach you to read the tabloid of scents,
to fade into shadow, wait like a trap, to hunt.
Now I lay this plump warm mouse on your mat.

You feed me, I try to feed you, we are friends,
says the cat, although I am more equal than you.
Can you leap twenty times the height of your body?
Can you run up and down trees? Jump between roofs?

Let us rub our bodies to- get- her and talk of touch.
My emotions are pure as salt crystals and as hard.

My lusts glow like my eyes. I sing to you in the mornings
walking round and round your bed and into your face.

Come I will teach you to dance
as naturally
as falling asleep and waking and stretching long, long.
I speak greed with my paws and fear with my whiskers.
Envy lashes my tail. Love speaks me entire, a word

of fur. I will teach you to be
still as an egg
and to slip like the ghost of wind through the grass.

Marge Piercy

Marge Piercy, “The cat’s song” from Mars & Her Children (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992). First appeared in Matrix 28 (Spring 1989). Copyright © 1989, 1992 by Marge Piercy and Middlemarsh, Inc.