Library Updates and Pics from the Hayes Presidential Center
Current mood: contemplative
Category: Travel and Places

Here's just a teaser...

Manning a cannon at the
Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center
in Fremont, Ohio

To read the whole blog and see a bunch more photos, visit

http://crisisblog.crisischronicles.com/2008/09/04/library-updates-and-april-trip-to-the-hayes-presidential-center.aspx

Peace, love and poetry,

Jesus Crisis

Currently listening : Purple Haze Release date: 2006-10-24

8:46 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Help
Category: Writing and Poetry

This morning I received a message from the universe:

"someone very very good needs help - please send a prayer and pass the word"

Sounds mystical and I can't explain, but please trust me and do it if you can find it in your heart to do so.  Thanks....

Currently listening : Out of the Blue By Electric Light Orchestra Release date: 2007-02-20

12:23 PM - 24 Comments - 22 Kudos - Add Comment

S is for Smith (my favorite poets from A to Z - volume 19)
Current mood: inspired
Category: Writing and Poetry

Smith3 - by Steven B. Smith
I like to call this image Blue Brahma

Cleveland 2004 - foto by Steven B. Smith
I like to call this image If You Meet a Cracked Buddha on the Crosswalk

Currently reading : Tao Te Ching By Lao-Tzu

8:01 AM - 10 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

C is for Coleridge and Corso (my favorite poets from A to Z - volume 3)
Current mood: contemplative
Category: Writing and Poetry

One of the reasons I've taken so long to get to the third installment in this series: I couldn't decide which C to choose.  Both Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Gregory Corso could easily qualify as my favorite C poet (with honorable mentions going to Stephen Crane and Geoffrey Chaucer).

Another reason I've taken so long: I flirted with focusing on (instead of one poet) our fantastic local poetry scene (C is for Cleveland).  But the more I contemplated that idea, the more convinced I became that this rich scene deserves far more than one blog.  So it'll probably turn into a future series (and since some of my favorite poets are from Cleveland, there will certainly be some overlap). 

For now, let's stick with my favorite poets whose names begin with C.
Coleridge and Corso - an English Romantic and an American Beat....

Both poets have influenced and inspired me - and the works of both have at times played important roles in my artistic and human development.  But although I could ramble on for days, I'd rather let these gentlemen do the talking.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome ! those caves of ice !
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.


[For more about the poem, click here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kubla_Khan]





Gregory Corso

[Corso is probably the least known of the "Beats."  He also spent three years in prison as a young man (and that's where he got into poetry).  Here are two of his pieces - "Spirit" and an excerpt from "The American Way."]

Spirit

Spirit
is Life
It flows thru
the death of me
endlessly
like a river
unafraid
of becoming
the sea


[Ah, heck... I'll give you ALL of "The American Way." I just don't feel right abridging it.]

The American Way

1
I am a great American
I am almost nationalistic about it!
I love America like a madness!
But I am afraid to return to America
I'm even afraid to go into the American Express—

2
They are frankensteining Christ in America
in their Sunday campaigns
They are putting the fear of Christ in America
under their tents in their Sunday campaigns
They are driving old ladies mad with Christ in America
They are televising the gift of healing and the fear of hell
in America under their tents in their Sunday
campaigns
They are leaving their tents and are bringing their Christ
to the stadiums of America in their Sunday
campaigns
They are asking for a full house an all get out
for their Christ in the stadiums of America
They are getting them in their Sunday and Saturday
campaigns
They are asking them to come forward and fall on their
knees
because they are all guilty and they are coming
forward
in guilt and are falling on their knees weeping their
guilt
begging to be saved O Lord O Lord in their Monday
Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
and Sunday campaigns

3
It is a time in which no man is extremely wondrous
It is a time in which rock stupidity
outsteps the 5th Column as the sole enemy in America
It is a time in which ignorance is a good Ameri-cun
ignorance is excused only where it is so
it is not so in America
Man is not guilty Christ is not to be feared
I am telling you the American Way is a hideous monster
eating Christ making Him into Oreos and Dr. Pepper
the sacrament of its foul mouth
I am telling you the devil is impersonating Christ in America
America's educators & preachers are the mental-dictators
of false intelligence they will not allow America
to be smart
they will only allow death to make America smart
Educators & communicators are the lackeys of the
American Way
They enslave the minds of the young
and the young are willing slaves (but not for long)
because who is to doubt the American Way
is not the way?

The duty of these educators is no different
than the duty of a factory foreman
Replica production make all the young think alike
dress alike believe alike do alike
Togetherness this is the American Way
The few great educators in America are weak & helpless
They abide and so uphold the American Way
Wars have seen such men they who despised things about them
but did nothing and they are the most dangerous
Dangerous because their intelligence is not denied
and so give faith to the young
who rightfully believe in their intelligence
Smoke this cigarette doctors smoke this cigarette
and doctors know
Educators know but they dare not speak their know
The victory that is man is made sad in this fix
Youth can only know the victory of being born
all else is stemmed until death be the final victory
and a merciful one at that
If America falls it will be the blame of its educators
preachers communicators alike
America today is America's greatest threat
We are old when we are young
America is always new the world is always new
The meaning of the world is birth not death
Growth gone in the wrong direction
The true direction grows ever young
In this direction what grows grows old
A strange mistake a strange and sad mistake
for it has grown into an old thing
while all else around it is new
Rockets will not make it any younger—
And what made America decide to grow?
I do not know I can only hold it to the strangeness in man
And America has grown into the American Way—
To be young is to be ever purposeful limitless
To grow is to know limit purposelessness
Each age is a new age
How outrageous it is that something old and sad
from the pre-age incorporates each new age—
Do I say the Declaration of Independence is old?
Yes I say what was good for 1789 is not good for 1960
It was right and new to say all men were created equal
because it was a light then
But today it is tragic to say it
today it should be fact—
Man has been on earth a long time
One would think with his mania for growth
he would, by now, have outgrown such things as
constitutions manifestos codes commandments
that he could well live in the world without them
and know instinctively how to live and be
—for what is being but the facility to love?

Was not that the true goal of growth, love?
Was not that Christ?
But man is strange and grows where he will
and chalks it all up to Fate whatever be—
America rings with such strangeness
It has grown into something strange and
the American is good example of this mad growth
The boy man big baby meat
as though the womb were turned backwards
giving birth to an old man
The victory that is man does not allow man
to top off his empirical achievement with death
The Aztecs did it by yanking out young hearts
at the height of their power
The Americans are doing it by feeding their young to the
Way
For it was not the Spaniard who killed the Aztec
but the Aztec who killed the Aztec
Rome is proof Greece is proof all history is proof
Victory does not allow degeneracy
It will not be the Communists will kill America
no but America itself—
The American Way that sad mad process
is not run by any one man or organization
It is a monster born of itself existing of its self
The men who are employed by this monster
are employed unknowingly
They reside in the higher echelons of intelligence
They are the educators the psychiatrists the ministers
the writers the politicians the communicators
the rich the entertainment world
And some follow and sing the Way because they sincerely
believe it to be good
And some believe it holy and become minutemen in it
Some are in it simply to be in
And most are in it for gold
They do not see the Way as monster
They see it as the "Good Life"
What is the Way?
The Way was born out of the American Dream a
nightmare—
The state of Americans today compared to the Americans
of the 18th century proves the nightmare—
Not Franklin not Jefferson who speaks for America today
but strange red-necked men of industry
and the goofs of show business
Bizarre! Frightening! The Mickey Mouse sits on the throne
and Hollywood has a vast supply—
Could grammar school youth seriously look upon
a picture of George Washington and "Herman Borst"
the famous night club comedian together at Valley
Forge?
Old old and decadent gone the dignity
the American sun seems headed for the grave
O that youth might raise it anewl
The future depends solely on the young
The future is the property of the young
What the young know the future will know
What they are and do the future will be and do
What has been done must not be done again
Will the American Way allow this?
No.
I see in every American Express
and in every army center in Europe
I see the same face the same sound of voice
the same clothes the same walk
I see mothers & fathers no
difference among them
Replicas
They not only speak and walk and think alike
they have the same facel
What did this monstrous thing?
What regiments a people so?

How strange is nature's play on America
Surely were Lincoln alive today
he could never be voted President not with his
looks—
Indeed Americans are babies all in the embrace
of Mama Way
Did not Ike, when he visited the American Embassy in
Paris a year ago, say to the staff—"Everything is fine, just drink
Coca Cola, and everything will be all right."
This is true, and is on record
Did not American advertising call for TOGETHERNESS?
not orgiasticly like today's call
nor as means to stem violence
This is true, and is on record.
Are not the army centers in Europe ghettos?
They are, and O how sad how lost!
The PX newsstands are filled with comic books
The army movies are always Doris Day
What makes a people huddle so?
Why can't they be universal?
Who has smelled them so?
This is serious! I do not mock or hate this
I can only sense some mad vast conspiracy!
Helplessness is all it is!
They are caught caught in the Way—
And those who seek to get out of the Way
can not
The Beats are good example of this
They forsake the Way's habits
and acquire for themselves their own habits
And they become as distinct and regimented and lost
as the main flow
because the Way has many outlets
like a snake of many tentacles—
There is no getting out of the Way
The only way out is the death of the Way
And what will kill the Way but a new consciousness
Something great and new and wonderful must happen
to free man from this beast
It is a beast we can not see or even understand
For it be the condition of our minds
God how close to science fiction it all seemsl
As if some power from another planet
incorporated itself in the minds of us all
It could well bel
For as I live I swear America does not seem like America
to me

Americans are a great people
I ask for some great and wondrous event
that will free them from the Way
and make them a glorious purposeful people once
again
I do not know if that event is due deserved
or even possible
I can only hold that man is the victory of life
And I hold firm to American man

I see standing on the skin of the Way
America to be as proud and victorious as St.
Michael on the neck of the fallen Lucifer—

 

* * *

I heartily recommend the following Coleridge and Corso books
(all available through my Amazon bookstore)
Gregory Corso works from Amazon..
Samuel Taylor Coleridge works from Amazon..

Previous A to Z poetry installments include:
A is for Apollinaire (my favorite poets from A to Z - volume 1)
B is for Baudelaire (my favorite poets from A to Z - volume 2)


For online biographies of Coleridge and Corso, check out these links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Taylor_Coleridge
http://www.online-literature.com/coleridge/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Corso
http://www.beatmuseum.org/corso/gregorycorso.html

Currently reading : Cleveland Poetry Scenes

11:29 PM - 12 Comments - 12 Kudos - Add Comment

B Is for Baudelaire (my favorite poets from A to Z - vol. 2)
Current mood: electric
Category: Writing and Poetry

Thanks to everyone who's read and commented on the first installment of this poetry series, A is for Apollinaire.

Whereas A was fairly easy to decide upon (the only other poet I considered for that blog was Adrienne Rich), B would normally be much more difficult.  Depending on my mood, William Blake, Lord Byron and Charles Baudelaire could each easily win the nomination, though at present I'm leaning more toward the French Baudelaire.  I didn't know if I should feature two Frenchmen back-to-back, and I'm concerned that Baudelaire's work might be a little too dark for some of my readers, but I've already posted Blake and Byron blogs on MySpace and CrisisChronicles.com.


If I had to pick a list of the greatest poetry books of all time, Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal (Flowers of Evil) would rank rather high in my top ten - in fact there are times in my life when I've ranked it first.  As with Apollinaire, we find issues with the translations seeming less brilliant (in some cases, far less) than Baudelaire's French originals.  But he is essential reading.  Another of my favorite poets, T.S. Eliot, called Les Fleurs du Mal the greatest example of modern poetry in any language.  Originally to be called Les Lesbians, the book kicked down all sorts of barriers - and upon its first publication was confiscated by police, leading Baudelaire and his publisher to be tried in court for "offence to public decency."  Baudelaire himself said, "I put my entire soul, my entire heart, my entire religion, my entire hatred into that horrible book."

But let me shut up and give you a selection.

Charles Baudelaire, portrait by Swedenborg

Hymne à la Beauté

Viens-tu du ciel profond ou sors-tu de l'abîme,
O Beauté? ton regard, infernal et divin,
Verse confusément le bienfait et le crime,
Et l'on peut pour cela te comparer au vin.

Tu contiens dans ton oeil le couchant et l'aurore;
Tu répands des parfums comme un soir orageux;
Tes baisers sont un philtre et ta bouche une amphore
Qui font le héros lâche et l'enfant courageux.

Sors-tu du gouffre noir ou descends-tu des astres?
Le Destin charmé suit tes jupons comme un chien;
Tu sèmes au hasard la joie et les désastres,
Et tu gouvernes tout et ne réponds de rien.

Tu marches sur des morts, Beauté, dont tu te moques;
De tes bijoux l'Horreur n'est pas le moins charmant,
Et le Meurtre, parmi tes plus chères breloques,
Sur ton ventre orgueilleux danse amoureusement.

L'éphémère ébloui vole vers toi, chandelle,
Crépite, flambe et dit: Bénissons ce flambeau!
L'amoureux pantelant incliné sur sa belle
A l'air d'un moribond caressant son tombeau.

Que tu viennes du ciel ou de l'enfer, qu'importe,
Ô Beauté! monstre énorme, effrayant, ingénu!
Si ton oeil, ton souris, ton pied, m'ouvrent la porte
D'un Infini que j'aime et n'ai jamais connu?

De Satan ou de Dieu, qu'importe? Ange ou Sirène,
Qu'importe, si tu rends, — fée aux yeux de velours,
Rythme, parfum, lueur, ô mon unique reine! —
L'univers moins hideux et les instants moins lourds?

— Charles Baudelaire

Hymn to Beauty

Do you come from Heaven or rise from the abyss,
Beauty? Your gaze, divine and infernal,
Pours out confusedly benevolence and crime,
And one may for that, compare you to wine.

You contain in your eyes the sunset and the dawn;
You scatter perfumes like a stormy night;
Your kisses are a philtre, your mouth an amphora,
Which make the hero weak and the child courageous.

Do you come from the stars or rise from the black pit?
Destiny, bewitched, follows your skirts like a dog;
You sow at random joy and disaster,
And you govern all things but answer for nothing.

You walk upon corpses which you mock, O Beauty!
Of your jewels Horror is not the least charming,
And Murder, among your dearest trinkets,
Dances amorously upon your proud belly.

The dazzled moth flies toward you, O candle!
Crepitates, flames and says: "Blessed be this flambeau!"
The panting lover bending o'er his fair one
Looks like a dying man caressing his own tomb,

Whether you come from heaven or from hell, who cares,
O Beauty! Huge, fearful, ingenuous monster!
If your regard, your smile, your foot, open for me
An Infinite I love but have not ever known?

From God or Satan, who cares? Angel or Siren,
Who cares, if you make, — fay with the velvet eyes,
Rhythm, perfume, glimmer; my one and only queen!
The world less hideous, the minutes less leaden?

— William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)

Hymn to Beauty

Did you spring out of heaven or the abyss,
Beauty? Your gaze infernal, yet divine,
Spreads infamy and glory, grief and bliss,
And therefore you can be compared to wine.

Your eyes contain both sunset and aurora:
You give off scents, like evenings storm-deflowered:
Your kisses are a philtre: an amphora
Your mouth, that cows the brave, and spurs the coward.

Climb you from gulfs, or from the stars descend?
Fate, like a fawning hound, to heel you've brought;
You scatter joy and ruin without end,
Ruling all things, yet answering for naught.

You trample men to death, and mock their clamour.
Amongst your gauds pale Horror gleams and glances,
And Murder, not the least of them in glamour,
On your proud belly amorously dances.

The dazzled insect seeks your candle-rays,
Crackles, and burns, and seems to bless his doom.
The groom bent o'er his bride as in a daze,
Seems, like a dying man, to stroke his tomb.

What matter if from hell or heaven born,
Tremendous monster, terrible to view?
Your eyes and smile reveal to me, like morn,
The Infinite I love but never knew.

From God or Fiend? Siren or Sylph ? Invidious
The answer — Fay with eyes of velvet, ray,
Rhythm, and perfume! — if you make less hideous
Our universe, less tedious leave our day.

— Roy Campbell, Poems of Baudelaire (New York: Pantheon Books, 1952)

Hymn to Beauty

Did you fall from high heaven or surge from the abyss,
O Beauty? Your bright gaze, infernal and divine,
Confusedly pours out courage and cowardice,
Or love and crime. Therefore men liken you to wine.

Your eyes hold all the sunset and the dawn, you are
As rich in fragrances as a tempestuous night,
Your kisses are a philtre and your mouth a jar
Filling the child with valor and the man with fright.

Did the stars mould you or the pit's obscurity?
You bring at random Paradise or Juggernaut.
Fate sniffs your skirts with a charmed dog's servility,
You govern all and yet are answerable for naught.

Beauty, you walk on corpses of dead men you mock.
Among your store of gems, Horror is not the least;
Murder, amid the dearest trinkets of your stock,
Dances on your proud belly like a ruttish beast.

Candle, the transient moth flies dazzled to your light,
Crackles and flames and says: "Blessèd this fiery doom!"
The panting lover with his mistress in the night
Looks like a dying man caressing his own tomb.

Are you from heaven or hell, Beauty that we adore?
Who cares? A dreadful, huge, ingenuous monster, you!
So but your glance, your smile, your foot open a door
Upon an Infinite I love but never knew.

From Satan or from God? Who cares? Fierce or serene,
Who cares? Sister to sirens or to seraphim?
So but, dark fey, you shed your perfume, rhythm and sheen
To make the world less hideous and Time less grim.

— Jacques LeClercq, Flowers of Evil (Mt Vernon, NY: Peter Pauper Press, 1958)



To read the complete Les Fleurs du Mal (in both French and several English translations, please visit http://fleursdumal.org/ - an excellent site.

To read Wikipedia's online biography of Charles Baudelaire: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Baudelaire.

You may also click here to browse Baudelaire works available though JC's Amazon bookstore.

Feel free to leave a comment either here or at my original posting on my non-MySpace blog (by clicking this link): http://crisisblog.crisischronicles.com/2008/05/07/baudelaire.aspx
(There are a lot more comments there so far than here).

I will copy all comments left here to the other site (but I will give you credit).  And because time is sometimes short, I tend to reply to comments left there sooner.  But I'll gladly get to you here, too.  Just so you know....

Currently reading : The Flowers of Evil (Oxford World’s Classics) By Charles Baudelaire

7:55 AM - 8 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

A is for Apollinaire (my favorite poets from A to Z - volume 1 of a new series)
Current mood: catalyzed
Category: Writing and Poetry

Originally posted at http://crisisblog.crisischronicles.com/2008/04/29/apollinaire.aspx

I forget where I learned of Guillaume Apollinaire originally - but I know it was sometime in the very early 1990's when I was trying to learn French and spending countless hours immersing myself in that language's ocean of surrealist and symbolist poetry.

Apollinaire coined the word surrealism.

He was the an influential early champion of cubism.

In addition to being a fine poet and art critic, he semi-secretly wrote erotica, which was banned in France until long after his death.

He was once arrested on suspicion of stealing the Mona Lisa.

His best friends included Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Erik Satie, Jean Cocteau and Marcel Duchamp.

At age 36, he was wounded by shrapnel to the head in World War I.

He died at age 38 during the Spanish flu pandemic.

Guillaume Apollinaire sporting his war wound bandage

For a free e-book dowload of Apollinaire's poetry collection Alcools (my favorite) in French
click here: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/15462

For a pretty good online biography of Apollinaire
click here: http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/apollina.htm

Feel free to leave a comment either here or at my original posting on my non-MySpace blog (by clicking this link): http://crisisblog.crisischronicles.com/2008/04/29/apollinaire.aspx)

I reserve the right to copy all comments left here to the other site (I will give you credit).  Because time is sometimes short, I tend to reply to comments left there sooner.  Just so you know....

4:38 PM - 12 Comments - 10 Kudos - Add Comment

John Cage Engaged and Uncaged (a poem)
Current mood: pensive
Category: Writing and Poetry

by Jesus Crisis, 10 April 2008, never and always
originally posted on my primary blog at
http://crisisblog.crisischronicles.com

Sunken funkin' telepumpkin
Tell a country bumpkin who I am
And then let him tell you.

Both will tell it true
Though their perspectives seem contradictory
I'm born of hickory and rectory
Blind Bartimaeus and insightful inspectory
True tale and muddled myth
On an identical trajectory.

John Cage or someone like him
(is anyone like anyone
more than anyone is unlike?)
Said disharmony does not exist
And the peaceniks are pissed.

Corn isn't hominy
But hominy is corn
And care isn't clothing
Though care can be worn
And all can be born
And all can be torn
And loved and forlorn
And warned and scorned
And according to some bother or brother or other
Reborn.

Sunken funkin' telepumpkin
Born of a couch potato
And a pureed tomato
An almost dead and buried berater
Blind hate hater
Lover
Elater
Thin ice skater
War abhorrer
Saint and horror
Mental (and governmental)
Master baiter
And sooner or later
Repeat reincarnator.

I am a living death
An awakened dream
Ash unconsumed
And a silent scream
Reconcilable so-called contradiction
And factual fiction

John Cage
Uncaged
Inadequately aged and yet
Timeless
A sublime mess
Subconsciously clothed and consciously undressed
Said worse and better are no less than best
Corn is hominy
And there is no disharmony

Only harmonies to which our ears
(my dears and our fears)
Are unaccustomed.

(c) 2008 by Jesus Crisis

12:56 AM - 8 Comments - 12 Kudos - Add Comment

Happy birthday Roger Waters (6 Sept.) - & links to my latest Crisis Chronicles blog and more
Current mood: contemplative
Category: Music

Newest CrisisChronicles blogs (click the link of your choice):