Calder's Miniature Circus

See a video of Calder's Circus in action!

The Strawberry

after Francis Ponge, master poet of things

A morning fruit, the strawberry is adorned by dew. Like shy red bells with a down-turned tip, they shiver as you reach for one in your clumsy way. But deception. The two halves of the strawberry, so much like the unknowing heart, though it would be immodest for me to say so, is not a smooth object. In fact, it is covered with poppy seeds, almost imperceptible to the eye. Yet the tongue approves, for it is also not a homogeneous mass, but a sensitive beast fit through a tight hairnet, it senses the individual points, the crosshairs of taste and texture. The surface of a strawberry, likewise, has a map wrapped around it with longitudes and latitudes, points evenly spaced apart where they meet. These are like the far away figures dotting the country landscape. Who are they anyway, approaching now in pilgrim clothes?

(initially published in The Grove Review)

Armed Thus, God Could Only Make a Cabinet

Stiff armed boy, your hollow
body goes a long ways
over the surface of the lake,
bass over bass.
I am open in your presence,
then I am closed. Two reeds
of the same speech middling.
A vibration means a yes,
then silence, no. Clouds
scroll by. The water
returns my advances,
souvenir for souvenir. Boy,
if you love me
squeeze my hand. Move your eyes
something if indeed
I am here, deaf and filled
with water. I am yours, open
and so close.

* title taken from a line in Arcadia, a play by Tom Stoppard

Questions about Beetles

1. Are these even beetles? Why do they come out before it starts to rain? Do they live underground? Do they live in the trunks before trees? Do they have their own water supply or is that why they come out? What do they slave for with?

2. Do they have social patterns? Do they nest in the season? Why does it sound like that and then stops? What it like, a wind up toy or something? Is this even how one works?

3. How does one work? What do you drink of them? Do they only good for show or else wedged between the stones, an inkling of an apparition? Do they have eyes? What are their eyes? How come the skin-layer so winged?

4. Where are the aperture of the neck? The color of a beetle, is that fixed? What are the qualities of its light? Can somebody kill my beetle? Please? What is a beetle good for? What do we see in the lily-white? What should we call this one? Is a mating partner forever? Is nightwork long and tedious, without one click of light to calm the soul? Are these beige beetles? Why not? What is a little one called opposedly?

5. Does famine affect it? Does sitting do anything?

6. Is this a group or just one beetle? How can you tell? What is the sign for? In addition to any breakable parts, are there any other things? How does a beetle smell? How does a beetle feel? But how does a beetle feel when you do that? Are beetles in eternity?

7. Are beetles, after such bad weather, in seasonal display across the washway any blacker? How is my fingernail. What do you mean, “beetle”?

8. Does the desert they is friendly at? Careful the frontal lobes. What does a limb count say? What use, afterall, a beetle? Does a beetle have a body? Does a beetle have a physical location? Even so, is this also not a beetle?

Wally

Ummm apparently Wallace Steven's birthday was in October (so is mine, I'm 30 now). While I was googling a Steven's poem (the nougat poem, unfortunately, is not on the web in full text, I'll have to wait till I get home to type it out from the book) and found this most amusing of blogs... the whole month of October seems to be one Wallace-orgy-fest!

Emperor of Ice-Cream Cakes probably the most genius blog I've ever read in the last 5 minutes!