Ken Morrill

To fashion a design as crickets are chirping
Outside as conversation mingles with the
Evening light and darkness’s blooming or
Pearls fooling themselves on a string
Ratcheting hammers of gloom in a window
or description of cement poured in through
Highway’s slant. Savant of wilderness,
Salacious herbs in the garden. Weeds of
yesterday’s lawn, Chemical advances on crisp
Tides, wizening hose and deliberate function.
Factions for freedom, curvature’s straw
In an edge of marble or a paced honesty

Are gloom’s cement, Are arrow’s glue
Is tomato’s edge, taste and color
On a white plate with organic whisper
Relieved on evening walk past houses
of brick and timber. Bridges becoming fire
Time to read and a testy chance
For the fire, the fire is burning
You’re late with the salad and greens.

Of all the modern paintings I saw that day in Roma, only one had a free sense of outdoor space, with out of doors colors of blue, brown and green, and sunlight. The rest were upsettingly closed in (with no way out, No Exit), that modern problem, The wall, Bartleby’s Wall, Coleridge’s opium den. The example of the open space taught me more in a moment than hours of the closed-in paintings, it is the same difference with certain friends. And such it is that I like Whitman infinitely more than Blake.

The willows in the wind looking like mad women laughing, tossing their hair back, cackling. The dancers in the studio performing strange dances and turning out not to be dancers at all, but the branches of bushes and trees. This with my friend from Bates in Oxford, before Magdalene Bridge.

Sailing, Poetry, Sex, and Camping in New Hampshire are hobbies of the imagination and provide happiness under the sun and moon.

Radiant Sunset - Collapse by the River -
Choose snowboots and ice-crunch
to phenomenal blue
Orchestrate moon-porch and
black dance to hills of pegonias
under the windswept clouds
in the churning frost
each icicle and snowflake
are wound in their own shape
and turn our minds new
in crystalline hues.

Prone Imagining Autumns,
Poet and Wallace Stevens, Enjoying
Points and Believing Imagery and Phrasing
before Breakfast Towers Rise
Entwined with Trees in Ireland,
in Botticelli, in Talous-Latreque,
Poet parts with meaning by the
Seine and by the Rhythms of
Stevens in Florida Spring -
Floribunda of Descriptive and
Fictive Music - Entuning Autumn
with Winter Between.

“The future is description without place.” Stevens

In circles under the stars, encircling
my friend, with curious chants, and
a frenzied dance - attempting primitive
under the glittering dome.

Journal, Poetry

Friday by the firelight and seacoast
after the clambake in the sand.
We saw the sunset earlier and
moved closer under the dark sky
with just a few clouds pierced by the dull moon.
The high tide waves lapped the edges
of her thighs, and she was warm,
Free to tell her several dreams and
I to respond with kisses and caresses.
We watched the seagulls in their looping dance
of chant and passion. It was a procession
of images and sounds and scents
by the ruffled shore.

Seriously study the music in Stevens’ phrases, in his lines of poetry, beginning with the syllables in the words and how they sound. Study him and Valery, Poetry and Abstract Thought and To the One of Fictive Music, the difference between these lines and the lines of speeches in Pericles:

“We’ll mingle our bloods together in the earth,
From whence we had our being and our birth.”

Must have intentions to delight the taste”

to

“And flame and summer and sweet fire, no thread
Of cloudy silver sprinkles in your gown”

“Now, of the music summoned by the birth
That separates us from the wind and sea”

Stevens must have studied the soliloquies of Shakespeare — often his poems are soliloquies and have the high and deep intonation of Shakespeare.

Calm and free now, after a long day which was hot and humid. Judging many things not well but not getting irritated. How so much said about being applies to language. Language as language and the sound and shape of the words. Having the perspective of language as a thing, of words as things, as certain things while slaps and laughs are other things. Knowing what walking is and being able to distinguish it from the dance.

Wallace Stevens:

“The thinking of god is smoky dew. The tune is space.”

“It is the sun that shares our words.”

So many stately lines, also with motion and physical crispness. Reading poetry has become a hobby along with my Wildflowers. Welcoming variety, color, and movement. So many stately charges, enlivened tunes, sweet digressions, wetting the tongue of enjoyment in the woods by the bubbling stream.

Ice+Alaska+Florida+Peaches=my arithmetic.

Journal

Whitman, continued from last night.

A note on yesterday: I went to the listening room of the library & heard some Jazz, the first movement of Beethoven’s Violin concerto, J.F.K.’s Inaugural address, Adlai Stevenson giving a eulogy of him, (part of that), & William Faulkner accepting the Pulitzer prize–speaking mainly to those young men & women who would be writers, encouraging them to study the struggles of the human heart, and to try and go beyond the flat possibility of atomic destruction, asserting that we are immortal, because we have souls. Of the Jazz I liked best Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five,” and listened to that lively & dreaming primal piece 3 times.

Back at my desk I read over the intro to Francis Murphy’s critical collection on Whitman, which is the best I have seen, reading enthusiastic & powerful essays by D. H. Lawrence & by Whitman himself about himself–and reading with an attentive & successfully critical eye an essay by dull & dragging Eliot about Whitman, who claimed that Whitman applied only to his particular time & place, which is almost a

From red sand to China and Lovers

River red sand fast twig and land, penumbra revisited, space, crystal,
dynamic, edge-glow, sound patter, sadness in the river, the heart we know,
glistening rod[?] to that, reverent in th room around that–
orange potato & glow to the field, diamond and earth shame
we’re done with you now–can you cake roses & shoulders for leaving
the house exposed by Virginia Woolf To the Lighthouse entuned sadly–
wringing asleep the pattern of (it’s summer & I’m creating)
or the wong tipped horse of doubt who comes to tell me

I must be doing something else, let’s go to it.
Silence! red horse of driving flame, or else meet the
mighty carpet in the dust whence you began
Drive not me but pedantry & waste forward–it is a sin for
you to touch creation Lo! Henceforth!
& the wind sparkles solid clasping bosoms of peace
you’re all there waiting for me on the other side
of what I must go through.

I’ll be there! Wait up for me. Don’t worry.
Already done & droning now busy in China on a hill, a little ways off
lies and willow and under there you will find two lovers, lying,
looking up at the sky through the branches and leaves.

warbling low & fleshy rooted matted & patted fresh down in caky brown
sponge loose & arriving at the buoyant stream, reason for entwining, meeting,
& seething under the cross[?] river

Well, dashing delightful & crispy, an end to silence spoken
just make sure they get put in there the right way
glad to see you’ve arrived
how many days a week & it looks like I can’t do it
No I don’t have a means of transportation
If tyou want
Not around here ma’am it seems pretty abundant

It’s hot, hot, and I could use a good breeze
have had water, sausages, cheese & muffins which melted away,
cereal, orange juice & milk & fallen asleep over Whitman
& reread–the essay by Randall Jarrell, read an essay by Pound
& some others & some more of To the Lighthouse &
the rest of Huckleberry Finn,–I finished, & I
think a lot of it. Have arranged my bookshelves &
looked a little for addresses & not finding them quickly
put the box away. Now I am falling asleep writing.

–It often happens–when I
am a mature poet–I won’t fall asleep
What I write will not knock me out (maybe)
like it does not. I will be stronger for it.
(sweat drops roll off my nose)


Generic Christian forms appropriated by various peoples in different ways


I walked down the street and to the left around a block coming to a church, with a partly opened gate & a fence to the back which I got over. A lot of sheep were grazing among the old tombstones–they moved away from me–and there were flowers and their waste & the sunlight streaming against the side of the things there. The air was clear and things were peacefully right. Part of the old town wall was in the back (Cashel) and I spent some time staring at a sheep, writing some, & wading[?] among the stones & to the back where the wall was.


“Where is the supreme ecstasy in mankind, which makes day a delight and night a delight, purpose an ecstasy and a concourse in ecstasy, and single abandon of the single body and soul also an ecstasy under the moon?”
D. H. Lawrence.


“Believing in Democracy; We acknowledge no superior.”
–on Firehouse on North Main Street.

Letting Lawrence live in me (because I read him) I can’t help it
(Becoming toward him) What he was, when he thought and read (and wrote)
I thinking (in the quick of life) with passionate energy (violently awake)
Strong on orange juice
Dancing Destructive Shiva (Moonshine, Midnight, Dark (rest)
Nervously Excited–Asked to create–Genius cooperating–Must give forth
The Intelligent Answer Emphasized to the quick of itself (the phrase)
or the thought wanted (Homely in Idaho) A whole state (congealed,
thickened by the mass) Only dangerously still (Like a cult, at night)

The One Answer
Becomes distinctive midnight
The Child at Night
Becomes
The One Star and Soft Night
In the East
Waking
Living
In the Wind.

Lawrence (Genius to me here as there) Confirms (Excites, destroys, refuses)
Leaves (Bourne ona tree, by the wind, shadowing awake A mind,)–
Allowed to form after several and various readings

Reading Lawrence Again

So that here–
In Providence–I may also join,
in his blooming discoveries of Mind
transforming soul in the leveling destruction of the finest & deepest criticism
to the things in the blood (and of the blood)
Providence July 1983

Let mind criticize herself to destruction until [so that] after the leveling the
soul may rise, whistling with the being found there,
in a new and incomprehensible situation under the stars.

May orange blossoms bloom in fragrant tufts forever by your home.
Let the wet whistling wind breeze in shifting slants at unexpected moments.
Let winnowing puddles of fresh & furrowing rain mold gracefully a bowl for you.
Let you still be ready to stand at the soil’d edges of the leaping foam.
May you always be gifted at the delicate moment to deliver your flowers in handfuls.
May you never be afraid to easily and generously create.

“The present eye praises the present object.”
Ulysses, Troilus and Cressida
III iii 180

“Magic of style is creative: its possessor himself creates, and he inspires and enables his reader in some sort to create after him. And creation gives the sense of life and joy: hence its extraordinary value.”
–Matthew Arnold

“To be saturated in expressions of this kind, is to have a language sensitive to the slightest finger-touch, and at a time like the present when the fashion is to insist on the infinite complexity of the modern consciousness, and to make fritters of English in the attempt to communicate this complexity, an intimate knowledge of Shakespeare seems doubly advisable.”
–J. M. Murry:

“Studying Shakespeare is studying how to write.”
—J.M.M.

“The art of recognizing his perceptions is itself perceptive, and the delight of ratifying his language, by reference ot the reality upon which he shaped it, is almost a creation.”
–Murry

I want to study Shakespeare because I want to learn how to write. I am young yet, and am not done with my early growing. My maturity in language depends on the intimate knowledge of Shakespeare I can get by often reading & trying to remember his writing.

I can agree on the importance of order–on myself as yet growing, on Shakespeare’s lines.

“lackeying the varying tide”
as making the most of mothion, possessing the best
mention if ideas / rhytmical thoughts in images
the highest, the best, and the brightest style of
language, rich, loaded with sensuious perceptions.

a man[?], a treasurehouse, and me in immediate relation with my voice.

Faulkner is to Thomas what
Cezanne is to Van Gogh.

Let me sleep to the heart entire, off the shaded path
on the grassy bank, strewn with rose petals and dangled
with a jetty of pure air, a fountain of freshest droplets
silvery cold and iced with dew

When writing (but not a letter) there is a violent
reduction of security
Your one a

If I could fissure out all unnecessary words
Find a pattern in the words themselves
Forget that I use words at all
Try to learn something new about literature
(literature is not just [?])

Basho: “No matter where your interest lies, you will not be able to accomplish anything unless you bring your deepest devotion to it.”

the celebrations the parades
the nights in bed in Oxford
May Day Morning
Meadow Walk with Amanda

As firmly cemented clam-shells
Fall apart in autumn,
So I must take to the road again,
Farewell, my friends.
By Basho.

Journal

Debbie

Hello poetry, metaphorical sea, lamplight, symbolism in a picture
Hollyhocks, coastal waters, sand reefs, and allegory
Moontide flashes, cantaloupes; is food the poem?

Grass shuttle and leafy suppers, lines and posters and steamy showers.
Streams of breakfast, oranges alone,
Only, its the desirable substance,
What makes tears move and your feet walk,
Restless and rustling in the leaves.
Spiral

I didn’t know back there whether you were fire or light,
Couldn’t tell the baskets from the lace,
Shouldered a bag of onions to droop, failing on the frosty ground.
Third dimension possible extreme, dedicate to delivery of oranges in spring
Aloof past steeples, spires in the wind, in a gray London,
on a sidewalk, through a tunnel, paving tubes,
Apple roots, side branches, wisdom winning willowing away
again it’s August, again decay.
Shadowed meadows, acorn chipped, oak and heather,
moistened lips.
[saddle highway again be gone with river lancing and shadows long]

The elevation of NOW into the only important place in the poem (set off from any other)–the last word.

Putting Now into the only important place, the last
the last say in the poem
having the sacramental vision liberally poured out

Journal

He said poems change,
Seeds are planted
And the soil
smells real good.
A river runs bubbling,
smooth stones tumble
in a jumble, from
earth to heaven, from
heaven to earth down
tufts rise and sink
the sea is bright
and the moon is
brighter still in
this Siberian night.

He said smells and sounds
flowers birds and poems
consist in flavor, tints
and tones, ritmo,
blue is heaven, deep and
dull is the early winter sky.

Strong Draughts of Their Refreshing Minds
To drink - enables Mine
Through Desert or the Wilderness
As bore it Sealed Wine -

To go elastic - Or as one
The Camel’s trait - attained -
How powerful the Stimulus
Of an Hermetic Mind -

–Emily Dickinson–

In Providence

I have ascertained the certain encouragement that (birdflow)
I have a few good (chock full) frinds & a loving family.

Blank trembling page

that dream I had this afternoon, that poem
under the water of sleep.

I have returned several times to the fact that while I am
not involved in exciting activity I am happiest writing.
(Counting sleeping and seeing to be exciting activities)
Today (and probably for a while) I have been losing
substantial references // historical, biographical –
I find myself expanded & lost but not afraid.
Almost walked into the Hare Krisnas yesterday–was that
ready to quit–today in sorting out my papers I
have more of a framework, especially in finding
my writings–I see that I thus can help
& encourage the me now.  That possiblility had
not occured to me as I thought I was always
getting happier.  (I had to go down to go up)

I have had a full look at the worst (touching
it, not wanting to touch it again–but I might)

(I like the quality of this writing very much)

My mind works so unfathomably fast.

Journal

He said poems change,
Seeds are planted
And the soil
smells real good.
A river runs bubbling,
smooth stones tumble
in a jumble, from
earth to heaven, from
heaven to earth down
tufts rise and sink
the sea is bright
and the moon is
brighter still in
this Siberian night.

He said smells and sounds
flowers birds and poems
consist in flavor, tints
and tones, ritmo,
blue is heaven, deep and
dull is the early winter sky.
 

Strong Draughts of Their Refreshing Minds
To drink - enables Mine
Through Desert or the Wilderness
As bore it Sealed Wine -

To go elastic - Or as one
The Camel’s trait - attained -
How powerful the Stimulus
Of an Hermetic Mind -
 
–Emily Dickinson–


Providence?
 
I have ascertained the certain encouragement that (birdflow)
I have a few good (chock full) frinds & a loving family.

Blank trembling page
that dream I had this afternoon, that poem
under the water of sleep.
I have returned several times to the fact that while I am
not involved in exciting activity I am happiest writing.
(Counting sleeping and seeing to be exciting activities)
Today (and probably for a while) I have been losing
substantial references // historical, biographical – 
I find myself expanded & lost but not afraid.
Almost walked into the Hare Krisnas yesterday–was that
ready to quit–today in sorting out my papers I
have more of a framework, especially in finding
my writings–I see that I thus can help
& encourage the me now.  That possiblility had
not occured to me as I thought I was always
getting happier.  (I had to go down to go up)
I have had a full look at the worst (touchign
it, not wanting to touch it again–but I might)

(I like the quality of this writing very much)
 

My mind works so unfathomably fast.

Journal

Lord, let me walk, heart stem to the last station
along the sided rushes in the blue hail
Give me green fodder, please, to the mountain,
A graphic flavor of sallying breezes
A fish back scaling red surfaces
scaling the mool turnip
sporting the soil’s flavor.

I don’t believe he is any more afraid or ever was after sleep after
the deep night in another place behind the moss under the wave. I
don’t think he could never believe some interrelation of moments
beyond the usual ideas and mind fences to a freer realm of thinking.
It makes sense to hold a while in feeling present now with images
and throat and arms but sound the clattering of typewriter the
bell at the end of the line the purpose to disorientation.
Living each day is difficult with moments of grace, rewarding
and worth the struggle. There is always the war between mind and
sea and thought and dune and sky and the churning outside opened
up fresh throstling jumping playing, the fine translucent tree,
outside green and fresh vibrant elastic, armed with words I am afraid to go outside

Rocky table, open mall
men on curb fronts, women hurrying along in black dresses
pretzels radios cloth for sale pillars standing one or two alone
butterfly by the ruins Greeks by the billboards Athenian Blues
Acropolis in blue, angles profuse, glad to produce,
Tolls in city Sunday quiet, streets people centered, clothes out
to dry, the Festival begins, the Italian girl on the bus
out from Assisi, love-lorn, burning, flaking instant, touched,
Chalk cliffs, green spreading hills topped by lines of trees,
soft song heard over the hill, olive view, castle poking,
ancient stores, long ago told, recorded,
friends on the way to London, on the road to Blenheim,
striding to the dance, being successful,
looking off the clump, in the bookstore,
by the Minster tempted, and again in Athens and again in Paris,
night train and International citizen enjoying, admiring the scenes
From Paris through Switzerland and on to Firenze. Christmas in that
city, art forms there, churches and statures, care for art for form
for craft, for discussion and symbol and story. For history and
love song and ice-cream. Firenze, couples on motorbikes, black skirts
long line of spreading houses villas arches down the Arno
Old bridge with gleaming gold Ponte Vechio & dice sent and silk sold
Wild hills in the olives and wandering gypsies and proscitto and fromage,
wine and pizza, piazzas and pastas, storefronts and palace fronts,
A grave and illustrious history, each day happening since then in that place
Pisa, neighbor, river & bridges, up the crested dipping street to the Duomo, & Campanile, a little tilted, & the sun slanting and a lawn. Ice-cream & soda crowds and the viw from the top– Churches with towers more beautiful than beautiful, unfathomable visual satisfaction, a treat deeper than a glass of water, something to starve for, elegance, delicate & supreme grace, lovely,
These towers and windows, arches above doors, houses side by side.
The atmosphere by the river, not wanting ever to go, thinking ever to stay, saddled from the deep north, from the Italian Alps and deep pine surrounded lakes, from Germanic lands, light haired once Norse people, and the chocolate and watches, fine pieces of Switzerland, from the French and paintings in Louvre by Seine, by Versailles and The Notre Dame, from to you modern Rodin, Pisan sea capital, entwined with exotic contribution, Roman backbone, elegant pursuit, cats food and charm more delicate than oyster shells.

Journal