Aphorisms

29 September 2014 I want to ask “How do poems think?” But I doubt that will mean anything to people who think they think.

 

26 September 2014 To learn a poem is to learn to speak it wholly in time, all sounds and silences proportionate, as it just hangs there.

 

18 September 2014: Observe the distinction between being and beings: preserve the precincts of the fertile void, the fluid matrix

21 July 2014: Priests and professors expect to have the last word. Which may be forgiven the professor. #Onionskinaphorism

21 July 2014: Creation and the word crisscross in theology. In poetry? #Onionskinaphorism

20 July 2014: Broaching ideas in public is inadvisable. It is highly offensive to those easily confused by words. True, most opinions are errant nonsense.

10 May 2014: When I read a poem, I listen for songlines that lead me to the great, ever-fresh distinction: matter is alive with form; God is formless.

 

8 May 2014: To be mindful is to contemplate the seemingly impossible community of God and man.

THIS PAGE IS BEING WORKED ON

Perhaps writers grow tired of themselves. They look at the page and it doesn’t help unless they can do a little editing.

The often thankless task of thinking about poems always involves an aporia: is it true as many believe that a poem is not meant to think?

We do NOT have it in our power to begin the world over again, pace Thomas Paine, Bill Moyers, Chris Matthews et al.

Split vision: the distinction between origination and objects; the process of understanding, which transcends the subject (June 23, 2014)

Poetry is a happening–a sudden opening toward what Desmond calls the intimate strangeness of being.

Let us have peace between us, my soul, I accept the distant look in your eyes as excitement to see me.

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The creative act exposes self to the other of creation, to which self must yield if the act is to result in artwork.

When I read a poem, I listen for songlines that lead me to the great, ever-fresh distinction: matter is alive with form; God is formless.

To be mindful is to contemplate the seemingly impossible community of God and man.