A glass of brandy. Breath.
Lately, reading

poems

I have found.

Cool
breeze.

The future like a vacated chair in some strange house.

From tarot card
junk mail:

"body (earth), heart (water) and mind (air)"

Quote of the day


"... And people
who seem not to know by day
whether their lives join or reflect, realise
there's now an emptiness -- not lack
but an unfilled space -- and a potential
the scarce spark of stars blinks at,
and it isn't stifled by the ghost of weariness,
the beauty of sleep.
You wait for it to pull you in."

- Jill Jones, from 'A quick life on the coast'

Baghdad continues to burn.

For an altogether different perspective on deers, read K. Silem
Mohammad's new book, from Tougher Disguises,

'Deer Head Nation'.

Congrats, Kasey, and thank you for giving the world this much needed,
funny and sinister - and did I mention funny? - book.

My copy arrived recently and I opened it to read:


"I spent 20 years in the army
of the most powerful nation on earth
the army of the pharoah
biting kids in your street"

- from 'Fucking to Put Down the Army'


And soon after I found these lines:

"9/9/2001 nothing new
9/10/2001
9/11/2001 sold out again

masks fall to the floor everywhere
the real me on spotlighted display"

- from 'Sold Out'


And did I mention sinister?
And much needed?

Try these lines:

"she's like an animal in a maze
she was brushing her teeth when
he never brushes his teeth
his bloody techniques and
woman beside him pinched her
daughter like an animal
teens teenagers teens teeth

what's it like to be an animal
transform the gunman into a bloody
truck, tractor, or farm animal
eye swollen shut and
lips pulled away from his teeth
in flashback to his ancestor
"a mountain with a smile"
bloody, scary silence"

-from 'Peek-a-boo'

Reading these poems is like ripping into the fabric of space-time, or
seeing the picture of Dorian Gray/

of America/

in America's attic, in all its cheesiness and darkness and sorrow,
but also something else, outside the window,
the window of the attic.

A large oak tree,
some old-fashioned vision.

Now I'm fighting the urge to write nonstop like driving fast cars across
the state line into streaming light.

Moderation/


stolen/


world, stolen world.


I turn 30 soon.

(Prolonged exhalation of breath.)

Some parts of The Jetty archives have vanished into a faceless blog
database.

Safe travels.

Be home soon.

I think the image in the cooking site description is of a type of wild
mushroom.

Hmm.

("General Cassie" was a little known Spanish dictator... or a joke.)

This week, Colin started not one but two blogs. He's sworn me to
secrecy about his programming site.

But his cooking site is also good news.

Today, near college with some other students, I saw a deer that had
been struck by a car.

Even in death, such a beautiful animal.

Fragile,

strange.

Its tibia had been snapped, bone poking through the skin.

But the fatal injury seemed to be a huge bruise covering one
whole side of its body.

Cars rushed passed heedless. Flies had already started to congregate
over the body. I don't suppose anyone will undertake to move it
for a while.

Yesterday Ron Silliman reviewed Del Cross's chapbook from Pressed
Wafer, 'Cinema Yosemite'.

Some well-deserved recognition for one of the classiest poets
around.

Back at college yesterday after a couple of days at home. Strange feeling
of returning to wakefulness.

Back to the world.

I'm a 'B' math student this semester. But I did figure out long division of
polynomials.

I think I will travel some distance along this mathematics highway. Lots
of trees and a blank sky here, burning above.

Quote of the day

"The sands are frantic
in the hourglass."

-John Ashbery, from 'The Skaters'

"Under the weather"

this week.
Now recovered.

Humid days.

The sky resembles damp gray
linen.

And a reminder that the forthcoming first issue of Poetry Espresso's
online magazine,


foam:e

is open for submissions. The deadline has been extended by one month
to mid-October.

Send your shiniest poems along to our first editor, Angela Gardner,
at the address provided.

A new online literary magazine.

Gult Cult

Quote of the day

"There’s a building going up across the street from my apartment, and
the construction sounds start just before my alarm would normally go
off. So I wake to hammering and metal clangs rather than an electronic
beep."

-Drew Gardner

Adding constantly to my list of links. Worlds
ripple through the screen

images.

I love American diner breakfasts. When my sister was here we took her
to Dina's Diner in Fremont for the full menu:

hash browns/
bacon/
omelette/
pancakes/
maple syrup/
coffee/
juice.

All delicious.

At the end of the meal she thanked us:

"That was great guys. And I
think I just got diabetes!"

Good joke

("uncalled for.")

Math test today.

Tree pose
in yoga class.

Turning happily sunburned walking home, wading through that sunny day
revelatory feeling, as though around the corner there will be saltwater,

a deep breath and to follow,

Fish & Chips.

Woke up in the middle of thought composition. Now all the angles of this
dimly lit room add nuances to a concept I know as a shape,

but not in words.

Yawn. Stretch. Ill-prepared for waking life, just now, I say

"goodnight".

Joanne Kyger was for a whole day misrepresented here! The 'strange'
comes before the 'big' in her book title.

Typo.

Editing as performance.

I loved the book 'Strange Big Moon'

(by Joanne Kyger.)

Huge white moon seemingly for weeks now. Like a planet's halo,
disengaged.


Quote of the day

"This gentle information
Comes as a prescription."

-Bernadette Mayer, from 'America'

At yesterday's poetry swap in the hot weather, at Del's apartment, we
decided that rather than describing a poem as a 'tour de force' we might
say 'Tour de France.'

Catherine Meng has joined our swap group, hooray.

And Catherine's latest 'Tonight's the Night' poem is here. An amazing
scenic Tour de France, this series, and I'm happy to have inspired

(the latest poem)

(if inspire I did.)

Just found this beautiful web log, Moonshine Highways.

Baghdad Burning.

I know why I'm grumpy. Because I'm almost caught up with my math
homework. And loving math again.

But don't understand long division of polynomials at all.

Last night on the train Colin told me long division was only invented
around 400 years ago.

So it can't have been
that urgent?

(Where did this grumpy mood come from?)

I just did an 'ego surf', looking up my own name on google. There seem to
be many "Cassie Lewis" namesakes at large.

The slightly disturbing sense that these unknown persons might resemble
me. Foolish but hard to resist.

Imagining the different search engine 'me's in parallel universes.

One playing intercollegiate soccer.

Another, a porn star.

Oh that's not how I planned my parallel existences at all!

Quote of the day

"Why decide in advance what to do. Eucalyptus trees their shiny
leaves and polished crows. The opera of."

-Philip Whalen, from 'Many Coloured Squares'

Yawn awake. Sleepy stirring noises outside in the garden. This world
stretches its arms and splashes cool water on its face.

What a great night we had last night. Colin, Stephanie and I at a BBQ
& Soul Food restaurant in Oakland called Everett and Jones.

We walked in and the place was very busy, popular on a Friday night. This
amazing smell of smoky BBQ sauce infusing the whole restaurant. Thank
you Stephanie for showing us this place!

And for conversation!

I ate yams for the first time, and

sweet potato pie!

The sense this morning that the world is a good place, where sound
decisions, quite often, are made.

Every experience here made more poignant by the fact that it'll be one of
the last of its kind

(this phase of my life soon to end.)

Quote of the day

"The cycle of provoking, feeling hurt, and counterprovoking. "Dialectics."
Stop it."

- Jordan Davis

Some new ways for mainstream and experimental poets to get along
this week on The Jim Side.

Listening to my Rain & Thunder cd, with the possibility of sleep
both receding and getting closer.

Thinking about Siddharta and how he only started to get somewhere
when he sank into calm.

(Under a tree.)

But all the running around is what led him to the tree.

Running cross country through the thicket of his own mind.

We named our previous car Sid in his honour. It was an old bomb but
it served us well. It was a very sensitive car. Once it stopped in traffic
spontaneously.

It was upset. Soon, soothed back into a state of calm - maybe its
own speed had shaken its confidence- the car drove on smoothly,
effortlessly. Just as abruptly as it had stopped.

The really spooky thing was that when we were about to leave for the
States we offered the car to my sister. She had it tested for road worthiness
and it was declared a miracle that it had ever gone at all.

She chose, wisely, not to adopt Sid. The car was left in an alley near
my parents' house in Port Melbourne.

It corroded in the sea air in a matter of weeks, and moved on
to the next plane of existence.

Rain

Thunder

Sleep's lighthouse

From years and years ago. To match the weather.

Autumnal

Pure agency of love
suspended and our dark
cab rides never went so close
as kissing you - that
was once my shelter. Oh cramped,
lonely London.
Do you know that tree?
And past advocacies?
Flying open. You waver
so slowly that the fine work
of your life is lost
Gesturing like a noblewoman,
you chose a more mature continuum.
Leaving. To become an actor.
Driving north through the dull rain
of the imagination did you not
strike form?

Celebrating my cured insomnia with a late night, tonight!

I think that Jim keeps getting funnier. See, in particular, his lists of books
for both prison and desert island stranding situations.

Notes


(Seems I've been silent now for days.)

Where does my mind go when it's not writing
here, rhetorically?

Well, just now I've been picturing the sea that surrounds Australia, and also
washes up here.

(The Pacific.)

Same ocean,
fresh molecules.

Waves rolling again and again, each time with different
water but the same basic movement:

"how shall I live?" Was it Kate Jennings
who wrote that line?

The body stores
memory.

Clarity through movement.

There's a girl, maybe 20 years old, in one of my exercise classes. She's a
dancer, teaches dance. She seems pretty ordinary in most respects and
yet she has this core of strength ...

I admire her courage. It does seem courageous,
to dance for a living. Like declaring love,

or becoming the sun.

When it's foggy and cool, traversing the hills in San Francisco is the most
romantic way to spend one's time.

You can't see too far ahead. Roads end sharply with a swoop down to the
sea. I meditate despite myself, whenever I am there.

My mind starts rocketing down those hills on a go-cart.

And to learn more about Angela Gardner's writing and visual art, you can
visit her terrific site, the light-trap.

Annoucement


Poetry Espresso's new online poetry magazine

foam:e

is now accepting submissions. This is an innovative and ambitious project -
a magazine created by a listserv with a 6 monthly rotating editorship and
an advisory committee consisting of over 80 list members.

So get involved, send us your best poems. Here is a link to the submission page
on the Espresso website.

If you have any queries about submissions, please write to our first
editor Angela Gardner at the address provided.

And Kasey Mohammad's site has moved here.

Stephanie Young! Your new site is gorgeous!

Talk about facing one's past. Today I have to confess to my math
teacher that I haven't done my homework. And need some help with
time management.

Just like 15 years ago, minus the black eyeliner. Oh, and the asking for
help is new too.

Domesticity.

Then the other day we walked about 12 miles through San Francisco. So
tired by the time we rested for dinner.

The fog was rolling in and it was getting chilly.

We stopped at a Turkish restaurant on Geary Street. Reminding
us of home.

(Melbourne has a number of good Turkish restaurants.)