4/28/08
4/26/08
Fate
"When the Gods wish to punish you, they answer your prayers..."
~African Proverb née Isak Dineson (attributed)
~African Proverb née Isak Dineson (attributed)
4/23/08
4/22/08
4/21/08
Poet Laureate of The Blogosphere 2008
The good people over at Blogging Poet were kind enough to nominate me for the Poet Laureate of the Internet award they give out every year. I'm very honored, however I can only say this:
PLEASE DON'T VOTE FOR ME.
There are so many other poets, men and women who live, die and eat poetry every day as teachers, as writers, as readers and they are far more deserving of this award then I could ever be. The past winners, Ron Silliman, Jilly Dybka and Amy King are poets in the finest and realest sense of the word who have devoted their life to the art and the craft of poetry, and all that this devotion means. They live it every day.
Fortunately, I do many, many things for work and pleasure, and I've been able to make a living as a film writer for the last couple years. I can't tell you how grateful I am that I have been lucky enough to do this. When I was younger, no, but as I get older I see how truly rare it is to be able to work in a craft whose possibilities, given the right circumstances, are endless. Film is, in many ways, the true love of my life. Perhaps many movies now are not what I wish them to be, but as long as the possibility exists for me to help in creating the ones I've dreamed since I was a child - sound, vision, drama, comedy, and, yes, poetry - no matter what form the movie may take, then I'm in as long as someone will keep me around.
In any case, the films that I write, the photographs I take, the poems that I scribble down here are merely pieces of a whole. This place is my living notebook, not dedicated to any one art or craft, but whatever is available to me in the moment, like a kid who scribbles in his journal late at night when he's supposed to be sleeping. That's all this is and all, really, I've ever been, that kid, flashlight on, scribbling away beneath his covers because he can't sleep.
Hopefully the desire to share, to communicate in these ways through this medium for all to visit or discard as they see fit, keeps me honest, real and centered so I never lose sight of why I wanted to be an artist to begin with.
So, please, vote for one of the other candidates, they are fine poets and far more deserving of this award.
If you're interested you can check them out here:
bloggingpoet.squarespace.com/bloggingpoetcom/ category/poet-laureate-of-the-blogosphere
I'd post as a hyperlink, but I don't even know how to post hyperlinks.
-Levari
PLEASE DON'T VOTE FOR ME.
There are so many other poets, men and women who live, die and eat poetry every day as teachers, as writers, as readers and they are far more deserving of this award then I could ever be. The past winners, Ron Silliman, Jilly Dybka and Amy King are poets in the finest and realest sense of the word who have devoted their life to the art and the craft of poetry, and all that this devotion means. They live it every day.
Fortunately, I do many, many things for work and pleasure, and I've been able to make a living as a film writer for the last couple years. I can't tell you how grateful I am that I have been lucky enough to do this. When I was younger, no, but as I get older I see how truly rare it is to be able to work in a craft whose possibilities, given the right circumstances, are endless. Film is, in many ways, the true love of my life. Perhaps many movies now are not what I wish them to be, but as long as the possibility exists for me to help in creating the ones I've dreamed since I was a child - sound, vision, drama, comedy, and, yes, poetry - no matter what form the movie may take, then I'm in as long as someone will keep me around.
In any case, the films that I write, the photographs I take, the poems that I scribble down here are merely pieces of a whole. This place is my living notebook, not dedicated to any one art or craft, but whatever is available to me in the moment, like a kid who scribbles in his journal late at night when he's supposed to be sleeping. That's all this is and all, really, I've ever been, that kid, flashlight on, scribbling away beneath his covers because he can't sleep.
Hopefully the desire to share, to communicate in these ways through this medium for all to visit or discard as they see fit, keeps me honest, real and centered so I never lose sight of why I wanted to be an artist to begin with.
So, please, vote for one of the other candidates, they are fine poets and far more deserving of this award.
If you're interested you can check them out here:
bloggingpoet.squarespace.com/bloggingpoetcom/ category/poet-laureate-of-the-blogosphere
I'd post as a hyperlink, but I don't even know how to post hyperlinks.
-Levari
4/20/08
The Golden Gun
"Some people's photography is an art. Mine is not. If they happen to be exhibited in a gallery or a museum, that's fine. But that's not why I do them. I'm a gun for hire."
~Helmut Newton
~Helmut Newton
4/15/08
Versailles
Waking mind refusing to let its guard down.
Clenched body lying here, following its own orders.
All the things you did not do today.
All the gestures thought about but never made.
All the whispers you thought you heard,
but could never quite make out.
Dreams of untwisted lands twisted.
Then the real desires come
as if they were never lost
and never could be:
family,
life into old age,
the forest after rain...
grasstreesabookahouseawarmbedmygrandfatherwrappedinaredwoolblanketfishingtheriverandunhookingthesunniesformetothrowbackin...
Finally, the sun peaks up
and through the curtains
to see if I'm all right.
Then it tells me:
You are,
so go to sleep now.
Hollywood - 1/07
Clenched body lying here, following its own orders.
All the things you did not do today.
All the gestures thought about but never made.
All the whispers you thought you heard,
but could never quite make out.
Dreams of untwisted lands twisted.
Then the real desires come
as if they were never lost
and never could be:
family,
life into old age,
the forest after rain...
grasstreesabookahouseawarmbedmygrandfatherwrappedinaredwoolblanketfishingtheriverandunhookingthesunniesformetothrowbackin...
Finally, the sun peaks up
and through the curtains
to see if I'm all right.
Then it tells me:
You are,
so go to sleep now.
Hollywood - 1/07
4/13/08
4/9/08
4/8/08
The Battle
my conscious wants the vegetarians to conquer the world
(for once.)
my subconscious only wants a bloody piece of raw meat;
most of the time it's all reversed
(...to be continued...)
Philadelphia, PA - 2/08
(for once.)
my subconscious only wants a bloody piece of raw meat;
most of the time it's all reversed
(...to be continued...)
Philadelphia, PA - 2/08
"Do you know Rubek, the sculptor?
Dead now. In an avalanche with only his model.
He did two or three things that were pretty good, in marble...
He could have been great, it's a pity.
You get stuck inside what you are searching for:
possession...possession...possession...
They're all after a possession.
They don't know it's impossible.
Giving up everything is frightful."
~Edouard Frenhofer
Dead now. In an avalanche with only his model.
He did two or three things that were pretty good, in marble...
He could have been great, it's a pity.
You get stuck inside what you are searching for:
possession...possession...possession...
They're all after a possession.
They don't know it's impossible.
Giving up everything is frightful."
~Edouard Frenhofer
4/7/08
4/4/08
The Greatest Poem Ever Transcribed
"It nearly cancels my fear of death, my dearest said,
...to rot in the earth
is a loathsome end, but to roar up in flame---besides, I
am used to it,
I have flamed with love or fury so often in my life,
no wonder my body is tired, no wonder it is dying.
We had great joy of my body. Scatter the ashes."
~Robinson Jeffers
...to rot in the earth
is a loathsome end, but to roar up in flame---besides, I
am used to it,
I have flamed with love or fury so often in my life,
no wonder my body is tired, no wonder it is dying.
We had great joy of my body. Scatter the ashes."
~Robinson Jeffers
4/3/08
First Page
In this moment
along the beheaded
path of time
so begins
the book
of your life
whose words you
will conjure
without
asking permission,
and
without
ever learning the rules.
You will make them up
while turning
these coiled,
cocked,
ruined pages
and transcribe into them
the infinite whiteness
of the desperate night,
and this morning's
mourning
that tiptoes
between the
seconds
of you.
~New York - 9/19/01
along the beheaded
path of time
so begins
the book
of your life
whose words you
will conjure
without
asking permission,
and
without
ever learning the rules.
You will make them up
while turning
these coiled,
cocked,
ruined pages
and transcribe into them
the infinite whiteness
of the desperate night,
and this morning's
mourning
that tiptoes
between the
seconds
of you.
~New York - 9/19/01
4/1/08
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