Tom Raworth
 
Tracking (notes)


light (drugs as only altering positions of piles of chemicals).
light as feeling? i.e. pulse waves(what happens to things
moving away faster than the speed of light? does light die
out?). Jesus, Shakespeare, Hitler, etc. (political waves?) going
out from planet like heart beats.
light. dream being the mixed waves of feeling from other
'mind' sources during darkness ­ our consciousness(un is not
sub) due to nearness of clear light source (reflected light or
what? mirrors?). day ­ night: artificial light destroys balance
(midnight sun?).

 

every question you ask presupposes
an alternative universe

 

fibonacci numbers?
1:1:2:3:5:8:13:21:34:55:89 etc.

 

saddle of hare?

 

god is the space between thoughts, no, that's simplistic. some-
times you can't understand the words but you know the
medicine is right.

 

for god's
sake
stay open
to your time
what's done
is

 


train

	the night

		     rain

 

nothing

lasts

 

within everyone is an antenna sensitive to the messages of
the time: art is beamed to these antennae. education should
tune them: instead they are smothered with phony 'learn-
ing'. the past has no messages (yes it has ­ whispering smith's
harmonica and a dog howling in the night).

 

we

    are

	  now

 

not rejecting knowledge but what (as in research) passes for
knowledge and is but an illusion. the words (knowledge,
intelligent etc.) must he redefined, or new words coined.

 

that is sure

clear

 

the connections (or connectives) no longer work ­ so how to
build the long poem everyone is straining for? (the synopsis
is enough for a quick mind now(result of film?) you can't
pad out the book)(a feature film with multiple branches:
you'd never know which version you were going to see).

 

things of your time are influenced by the past. the artist can
only go on from there and use the situation as it is: anything
else is distortion.

 

i stick with deKooning saying 'i influence the past' ­ and it is
not important for the work of a time to be available in the
mass media of its time: think of dickens on film, dostoevsky
on radio.

 

the true direction is always a glancing off ­ there must be an
out ­ all truth is not contained in the language: it builds the
language.

 

ahab: bringing back the light(whale oil?). darkness?

 

who's done any work on moving of food from where it
grows? (connection to land).

 

plane explosion ­ where do the sandwiches and suitcases
land? killed by a flying gold tooth ­ is it treasure trove?

 

white connected to light (link with white races fading?) the
concentrated flashes of light from blacks' teeth/eyes?

 

acid
or drink sweet drink
bananas and dates
disconnect battery

writing and i have a child
indigestion: fritz and su­su
the intestine

sun leaves the leaves
send this and strawberry
chewing gum to aram

mara ot mug gniwehc
yrrebwarts dna siht dnes
sevael eht sevael nus

enitsetni eht
us­us dna ztirf: noitsegidni
dlihc a evah i dna gnitirw

yrettab tcennocsid
setad dna sananab
knird teews knird ro
dica

 

into the side of the waterfall
the depth of the image

 

follow life
do not despair
(the legendary cock­of­the­rock)
stay on the wheel
do not accept the illusions

i     sol        at      ion 

of conservation and ecology
(or that's the way the llama breaks)

 

the shadow and the sun vibrate
the circle and the shell

penumbra

dig///it

 

the disguises
fit tight and are sealed

tasting to find what? spurt spurt
the positions of chemicals are altered

 

the decision
is not provoked by flicker

so why does it articulate?

 

what does the word truly mean?
how do we ask the question?

 

beneath the tight bodice
a nipple lights
the investigation closes a door

 

all week I've (week?) felt
the speed of writing
explanation rejects my advance

 

models of the past

 

agree to the movement
who are you?
your self faces you

 

any

    
erg

anergy

 

his neck was like pigskin
with the bristles still in

 

laurent odour

 

the curtains are closed
in the theatre
genetic reels
are stored in no time
and no space

but there is print through





Electronic ed. © 1997