Nobodaddy Text for Web.jpg

This online NoboDaddy in the Lower World realization is dedicated to Seattle percussionist, teacher and artist extraordinaire Paul Kikuchi.  Paul encouraged me (relentlessly) for years to save this collaborative recording from obscurity.   When I finally woke up and agreed that the project was worth doing, Paul further expedited the idea by graciously digitizing the original, 1985 1/4-inch 4-track analog recording so that I could commence a mixdown.  He then recommended the superb engineer and musician, Evan Schiller, to create a professional mix and final master.  This website and the CD we created from the final master would never have happened without Paul's years of tireless support, encouragement and professional technical expertise.  Steven Weinberg and I will be forever grateful for the vision that Paul Kikuchi had for this artistic enterprise, recorded so many years ago  -  and for helping us to bring it to fruition.

(NB:    Text in Cinnamon Red constitutes the titles and the  "libretto" for the CD tracks)

Track 1:

It’s All Very Definite—No, Not Exactly Missing

 

It is all very definite/No, not exactly missing. 

It is all missing/No, not exactly definite.

 

     (Quote from improvised version, recorded

     with Nobodaddy in the Lower World on Whidbey Island, 

     Washington, 1986.)

 

1. “ Seed” Draft—Original Draft

 

 

You are growing into the shell of your family. It is all very definite in retrospect. 

 

First you are looking at the inside of the shell, and now you try to remember the textures that were in there: the colors, the young faces of your family. Your father and mother have smoother features, flowing movement. Your older brother hums as he pastes stamps in his book. He would paste you in his book if he could, but you don’t listen to him. He’s selfish and brutish and thinks because he is oldest he is best loved. You are the one they love, though. They love you precisely because you don’t listen. You are the one they can’t pin down. They wonder what you do in the woods by yourself, in your room after dinner, where you are when they wake early summer mornings. Sometimes you walk bare-chested, barefooted in the forest, picking blueberries and setting box traps for rabbits, or in your room you climb from your bed to the air conditioner in the window and see a water tower in the distance—a spaceship you will enter at some future time. Then there is the raining magic and hearing of music in your shell—the day you chanted for the rain to go away, and when you opened your eyes it had. You chanted, and the sky listened. You closed your eyes again and heard the music of the heavens whirling in your ears like a singing yellow saucer. As you stood there, your body vibrated; the song sprouted seven songs, all overlapping and resonating at that terribly high pitch. Your limbs took flight from your body: an exploding flock of fingers, arms, legs, and eyes. The yellow sky imploded and swallowed itself: there you stood outside the shell of your family, faces old and distant, your father’s fear of death perched on your shoulder like your own hand, your mother looking bourgeois but happy inside her old soft

Flesh.

 

    As you stand outside the shell, you notice your older brother is missing. No, not exactly missing, just stiff and angular—an extension of his adding machine. You say to him, “798311777 divided by 00.” He takes it as an insult, but before he can yell at you, you slice the zeroes like onions and he begins to cry.

 

    You back through the membrane of the shell once again, becoming gradually smaller in the flashing tracer of memory until you reach the base of the spaceship. It is an early summer morning; no one is awake yet. You climb the metal ladder. Your ears seem large and sensitive—you hear birds screaming in unfamiliar patterns from the distant woods . . .

 

Sj Weinberg

    1974

 

NOTE: Entered here from photocopied handwritten “seed” version originally on lined three-hole notebook paper. At the top of the original I specified “seed” because I used this text as the basis for a progressive series of cut-up versions. I took the above text, cut it into pieces, rearranged the phrases and words, and rewrote randomly assembled segments to make sense for a new composition. Then I repeated the process with each new version a few more times. I used subsequent experiments as the basis for my improvised vocalizing/reading when Thomas, Paul, and I recorded in 1986. My recorded improvisations pick up words and phrases and riff beyond them, leading to: “It’s all very definite/No, not exactly missing.” I read some sentences and passages in their entirety or let my eye/mind/voice grab text on the fly, according to rhythms and sounds spontaneously composed by my compatriots. The recorded oral interpretation/improvisation picks up single words: “blueberries” and “box” (see cut-up version below). I discovered themes and ideas in the process of collaboration, returning to, repeating and then taking off in directions that made musical or verbal sense. 

 

NOTE: Baltimore—1950s—4509 Norfolk Avenue (Forest Park neighborhood). 

The text itself references my memories of looking out from the small upstairs bedroom I shared with my brother Jeffrey. My bed was beside a window, and I would stand on my bed to look out at the spaceship-like water tower in the distance.  When outside, I also wondered about that spaceship and the skies above. I remember standing perfectly still outside on our small front lawn, and listening to all the sounds, extending my consciousness to the limits of what my ears could hear. I would, for example, listen to an airplane in the distance as it would fly closer overhead, and let my ears and eyes follow the plane until it reached the absolute limits of my ability to see and hear it. I exercised my attention, hoping to determine the circumference of my sphere of perception. When testing limits of perception, I sometimes heard what I wanted to hear (like a song, as if playing on a transistor radio in the distance) and confuse myself. I would really hear the song—wondering which sounds were real, and which ones I had imagined into my personal reality.

 

The family drama is, emotionally, at the heart of the text—mother, father, and older brother—as my child narrator seeks to differentiate and find a place. Yes, I was the middle child. My Baltimore city residential neighborhood of cottage-like homes, Forest Park (notable unforested, but by a park), grew to accommodate WWII veterans ready for family life. We were a true neighborhood, in that we knew most families for blocks around our home, and we children freely played outside, nearly always unsupervised and unrestricted, with the proviso we return home at appointed mealtimes. My parents were kind and loving and supported us with great care for our well-being. My brothers and I fought with each other too much, but as adults we have become great friends; and even as fighting children we felt love and respect for one another, though the physical fighting was not good for us. The above text surfaced as an expression of emotions I remembered about struggling with my place in relation to my parents and my brothers. Our sister was, and is, six years younger than I am; she and I never experienced the strife and battles of brothers. In the stories we tell ourselves about who we are, we create personal mythology.

 

NOTE:  To find texts like this one from the scores of boxes stored for many years, I had to recall key words and phrases in order to scan and identify original handwritten or mechanically typed versions.

 

 

          I still marvel at strange, sometimes elegant, water tower spaceships.

 

  ⦿

 

The following draft (2) resulted from cutting the above “seed” draft into four sections, like a window of four panes, and shuffling the quadrants to create new connections I wrote down by hand and revised to make unexpected sense of the material, a kind of cubist reconstruction of the original. The draft that follows the first cut-up (3), followed from one of four cut-up experiments, possibly number two. The others are missing.

 

On October 10, 2016, I typed from handwritten cursive versions, photocopies of the originals written on lined paper. 

 

 

2.  Cut-up Versions—Recorded Track   

 

Blueberry.  Box.  Arm.  Leg. [eye.] The pink pattern has smooth rabbit features in your room and thinks. Because he is you climb from your bed. He tells you he is sorry. The color is a spaceship you will enter to remember the textures. You are growing into the shell, the faces’ old and distant window, and see water. You closed your eyes again to him. He’s selfish and brute of the shell once again. You pitch your limbs high—whirling. They love you in your ears like in the shell. You notice sometimes you walk barechested of memory until you reach and become gradually smaller. Hear the music of heaven like your own hand and forgive him!  Pat him on the back and vibrate the song. Sprout a singing yellow saucer. You are the one they can’t pin, just stiff and angular flesh. As you stand outside it has your eyes. You chant hearing of music for the rain to go. Perched on your shoulders, and down, they wonder, “What is your father’s fear of death?”  798311777 divided by 00: he, your older brother, is missing. Then there is the raining music. Close in the book, where you are when they slice the zeroes in the woods. By yourself.

 

    As you stand there, your body’s distant woods take the base of the spaceship and your father and mother away when you open the young faces of your family. The air conditioner in an early summer. Outside the shell of your family seven songs all overlap insider her old soft birds looking bourgeois but happy taking flight from your body.

 

    Barechested in the forest, picking it as an insult, now you try looking at the inside of the shell. If you can. But you won’t listen before he can yell at you. Your ears seem large and there you stand—morning—no one is awake, an exploding flock of fingers screaming in an unfamiliar tower in the distance. You back through the membrane.

 

    You climb the metal. It is all very definite—no, not exactly missing.

 

    In your shell the day you chanted precisely. Because you don’t listen he would paste you. Is the one they love oldest?  He is best loved.  Resonate at that terribly.  Retrospect: first you are at some future time.  He hums as he pastes stamps.  Wake up early summer mornings : if sensitive you hear your family—the flashing tracer.  Like onions he begins to cry.  “Machine,” you say to him. Flowing movement. Your older brother Sky had listened. Sky imploded and swallowed.

 



 

3.  Next Generation Cut-up from Another Cut-up

 

:  if sensitive you hear him bare-chested of memory until like onions he begins to cry bare-chested in the forest picing it as an insult. Flowing movement. Your older brother tries looking at the inside of the shell. If you can . . . but Sky imploded and swallowed before he could yell at you. Your ears remember the textures. You are growing into the shell, the faces’ old and distant mirror, and see water. You closed your eyes again to soft birds looking bourgeois and happy taking flight from body’s

        raining magic.

 

Close in the book a spacehip you will enter, zeroes in the woods, by yourself

        (SPACE)        Faces of your family put him on the back and

and vibrate the shell of your family.

                (SPACE)

                      You are at some future time. He hums because you wake up early summer mornings;  love oldest.    ?    Family—the flashing tracer.   Retrospect.:  first “Machine,” you say to him,  “Paste stamps.”  Brother Sky had listened 4 quarters. You notice that sometimes you walk limbs high whirling. They love you             (SPACE)

                                    (SPACE)

 

    (SPACE)                             

 

(SPACE}

 

                like your own hand and forgive him!  The air conditioner in an early summer.  Outside  seven songs all overlap inside her old Blueberry Box   Arm   Leg   [eye.   The pink pattern has smooth rabbit features. In your shell the day you chanted precisely,  the song sprouted singing, “ Don’t listen, he will paste you.”  Is the one they pin just stiff and angular flesh?  He is best loved. Resonate at that terribly.  Eyes, you chant hearing of music.  Yellow saucer, you are the one they can’t see.   Morning. No one is awake as you stand outside. Is it you screaming in an unfamiliar way for the rain to go?   Perched on the membrane, “What is your father’s fear of death?”   You climb.  The metal is missing.  Then

there is the

 

in your room

 

and thinks. Because he is, you climb from your bed.  Now you are him.   He’s selfish and brute of the shell once again.  You pitch yourself.  You won’t listen.  Distant woods take the base . . . they seem large and there you stand, away, when you open the young exploding flock of fingers where you are when they slice the tower in the distance.  You’re back.  As you stand there,  you reach your body’s spaceship and your father and mother and become gradually smaller.   Hear the music of heaven : He tells you he is sorry.   The color is rearranged quarters of  ④

 

Your shoulder,

and down,

they wonder—

798311777 divided by 00  =  he, your older brother.

 

It is all very definite—no, not exactly missing .  .  .

 

    (SPACE

 

in  your  ears  like  in  the  shell.

 

(SPACE)

 

(SPACE)

 

    ⦿

 

             

Apetito de Realidad

 

El  silbo  de  un  pajaro  despierta  ias  semillas

 

envueltas  en  la  miel  del  mediodia.

 

La  mente  es  una  cerca  donde  salta  un  pajaro

 

que  picotea  en  el  tramo  de  la  percepcion

 

con  apetito  de  realidad,

 

afirmacion  solemne  de  la  vida  fecunda.

 

                    --Jorge Carrera Andrade

 

 

 

 

Appetite  for  Reality

 

The  whistle  of  a  watchful  bird  wakes  seeds

 

coated  in  the  honey  of  noon.

 

The  mind  is  a  fence  where  a  bird  jumps

 

Pecking  at  the  field  of  perception

 

With  an  appetite  for  reality,

 

Solemn  affirmation  of  fecund  life.

 

        --Jorge Carrera Andrade

           Translated by Steven Jay Weinberg, 1974

 

 

 

Track 2:

 

 

Titles & Zones

 

from TITLES—1985

 

 

a  highly  improbable  purchase

 

alligator  hoola-hoop.

 

 

inhaling  gasses :

helium

 

 

legs  yodeling

imponderable

mantras

 

 

pedunculated

roses

 

 

odoriferously

babbling.

 

 

a  bilious

lily-livered

elephant

 

 

puking  urchin,

rears

coughs

 

 

hacks

a  savage

empirically.

 

              ◎ 

 

 

 

 

ZONE:   Every zone or area of space holds a symbolic

  significance deriving from its level on the vertical

  axis and its situation in relation to the cardinal points.

  I the broadest sense, zone may, by analog, be equated

  with degree or mode. The colors are really only zones

  of the spectrum, and, by this token, any arrangement of

  zones is susceptible of interpretation as a serial whole.

 

from:  A Dictionary of Symbols

                             by J.E. Cirlot

 

 

questions

to zones

a   stone   sinks

    ba-lup

slow  through

inhibiting  water (s)

 

 

memory

 

selects    &/

 

or  reflects

 

forward  answer (s)

 

demanding

 

consideration.

 

 

where

were  you

 

 

going

with  that  lost

look  screwing

up  your  face

 

 

the  sleep

I  mean  sleet

making

impossible

your  galoshes  grip

to  the  road  ?

 

I  know  you

know

you  asking

whether  that’s

light  on

leaves  or

white  blossoms

on  branches

I  know  you

need  to  move

closer

to find out

facts.

 

 

when  dawn

was gaining

      superseding

night

      I  under

stood  empa

      thized

with your

      faul

tering  per

      ception  of

dog

      fire

hydrant

      dog.

 

 

O honey

 sky  !

 

 

sound

bound

bouncing

along a

spectrum

of  colors

rubber-headed

mallets  awakening

color-coded

xylophone

keys.

 

 

fascinating

overlays

maps

divide

brain

into  lobes

&  crosscut

layers  never

approaching

 

    SPIRIT

 

    FORMLESS

 

    FREEDOM

 

    etc.,…

 

 

neither  white

blossoms  nor

light-leaves

snow  mounds

and   small  peaks

collect  along

the   trees’  branched

sticks.

 

 

hydrant

mistaken   for

dog  wrapped  in

trance  by  nightskin

split-

 

ting  open

sunrays  spin

ning  into

black  pupils

white  lace  net

ting  over  any

thought  to

move.

 

a hydrant.

 

truth

partially  hidden

by  love

partially  masked

with  moon

partially  obscured

in  cloud  and

darkness

 

 

my  heart

an  aluminum  slinky

descends  stairs

coiled head

flipping  over

coiled tail

to  your

waiting  hands.

 

 

to  north  and

south  and  east

and  west  and

fathomless

center

 

 

questions  spark

questions  spinning

off

        and  from where

into  every

Zone.

 

Sj Weinberg

   May 1983

Published 1985—Staple Diet Magazine/Pig Press/Durham, England

Sj Weinberg

   May 1983

Published 1985—Staple Diet Magazine/Pig Press/Durham, England

 

 

This morning I saw a pretty street

whose name is gone.   –Guillaume Apollinaire

 

 

◈◈◈◈                                              ◈◈◈◈                                              ◈◈◈◈

 

 

from TITLES—1985

(BONUS)

 

TrainWhistleCrane   

 

Tracks,

 

rails,  arms

 

into  now.

 

 

 

Wings,

 

high  in  stars,

 

trail

 

little earth.

 

 

 

Curious

rancid atmosphere—

 

 

 

night eels.

 

        ◎ 

 

Sj Weinberg

 

 

 

NOTE: This poem and “a highly improbable purchase” 

are from a manuscript of twelve poems determined by titles. 

The title of each poem came first. Combining the first 

letter of every word spells out the title. I let a title 

come to mind, then enjoyed seeing words arrive 

on the page.

              ◎ 

 

TRACK 3

Alphabets—1974 to 1986

 

In the tenth century […] the Grand Vizier of Persia, Abdul Kassem Ismael, in order not to part with his collection of 117, 000 volumes when traveling, had them carried by a caravan of four hundred camels trained to walk in alphabetical order.       —A HISTORY OF READING, Alberto Manguel

 

A

 

the man walks.  the woman walks.

the child walks.  there is a tower

the feet move toward.  there is a tower

the legs uphold.  in the evening

swallows go crazy in the orchard.

old trees rooted deep in dark earth

no longer bear fruit.

.

        B

 

brains.  barn swallows.  the baker’s daughter.

bills.  bombs.  she lies in a brass bed naked

and laughing.  he plays a porcelain flute.

the child spins dizzy ‘til there’s no

standing up.  everybody claps.  so many

grasses in the field,  his eyes helpless. 

a river.  a shadow. 

binoculars.

 

        C

 

crab has a hard shell,  moves sideways,

crawls,  clings to rocks,  knows all the crannies.

o pincers of delight,  claws of self defense.

still it’s easy.  there is a way to pick up

a crab behind its claws,  leaving it

totally helpless.  the cooper shoots

flames into a barrel.  dinner is served

in a cabin in the woods.  the cake tastes moist.

remove yourself…

 

        D

darts.  disappointment.  the dentist an artist

with his drill,  Death a master swordsman.  in toledo

a sword tempered in human blood.  this dream.

this door.  the doctor with his vessels and flasks.

given a capsule twice a day:  beheaded. 

dread.  deeds.  doom.  darkness.

drama.

 

 

H

hands.  heart.  head.  heat.  one hour alone in

the morning and one hour alone in the evening.  the attic

so hot the bats left.  her.  the sink the floors

the laundry the baby and more than that.  the boat

left harbor at 6 a.m. and he was on it. 

he wouldn’t return that night or any night.  a rancher

delivered his prize cow to slaughter and

later to his freezer.  haunches.  she made

a bowl of pea soup,  expecting him at the

regular hour.  later she removed the hock

and gnawed on it.  she knew it would come to this

and what she would do if it did.

she shaved her head,  sold her baby on

the black market,  sailed around the world

with a group of radical feminist Jesus freaks.

 

 

◈◈◈◈                                              ◈◈◈◈                                              ◈◈◈◈

 

 

       M

 

a  large  fly

dances  on  the  wall

 

 

martian

from

our  garbage

 

 

dances

on  the  wall

 

   ◈◈◈

 

 

    N

nest  of  

twerps

 

balled  up

                           chirping  twerps

 

swallow  their

suffering  worms

 

and  natter

until

nightfall

 

 

◈◈◈◈                                              ◈◈◈◈                                              ◈◈◈◈

 

 

N

nitrogen.  to him nuggets of soil were gems. 

never.  who can understand.  someone.  the streets

narrower there.  waterways.  posted a message

on a board in the laundromat: SOLDIER OF

FORTUNE SEEKS EMPLOYMENT.  they

wash out the sweat.  and dirt.  dispose of

the gems.  i put five down on Blue Baby and

lost by a nose.  you can always catch a shower

at a university when you act like a student.

and cheap food’s edible at hospital cafeterias.

here’s the problem—building up a large

enough stash.  maybe nine to ten grand.

enough to stay a while and come back with

over five hundred.  these folks think peanut brittle

is getting back to nature.  the horse came before

the cart full of vegetables.  that was proof enough.

he receded from the field.  gums receded

from his teeth.  they sent a strange gas by train

through the night.

 

O

 

spoils dwindle.  oranges.  potatoes grow limbs.

a mildewed burlap sack.  an exclamation representative

of surprise.  or is it a round greeting: hellooo.  if you are

a stranger it goes unnoticed.  a deaf ear to you, stranger—

invisible,  silent,  vacuum-packed stranger.  who would suppose

you feel anything.  the way you pack your rotten vegetables

around is abhorrent.  only other strangers speak with you

and there seems no way in or out.  you are where you are—

in a trunk, handcuffed and gagged, left with 2 ½ minutes oxygen.

a simple trick, really. but how did it go.  let’s see. the shark

beached itself and a man with red hair twirled it around

by the tail, tossing it back.  they think all the banging around,

the frantic racket and rocking, is part of the trick.  you really

have forgotten, though.  the larder is bare. t he shark

beaches itself again.

 

P

prance.  paw marks.  across a meadow then up a tree.

 

smoky and practical, yet dangerous if unprepared.

 

cinch up.  tighten the straps.  if you recall, that time

 

you were in several places at once.  were you

 

on television, at home, on vacation, in the news-

 

papers, buying insurance, on the radio, pruning

 

trees, speaking long distance to italy, and cooking

 

a cozy dinner for two that evening?  it seems so.

 

then the interruptions came.  several units of un-

 

planned spacers divided the whole thing up on

 

a herky-jerky conveyor belt.  proper hardware was added

 

but made it all too weighty.  the tusk became too

 

heavy to carry, but one ripe papaya added balance

 

to the scheme.  fruit flies flourished,  comanches

 

set fire to the wagons,  it swirled from the center

 

of the chest: an uncontrollable outpouring.

 

then scurried.

 

Q

 

a quiet inquiry into the ecologist’s home life to see what dirty truths we might dig up.  we crumbled potato chips in the receiver,  jammed the mouthpiece full of marmalade.  the guy’s a garbage collector, runs a big recycling campaign, scrounged his penny loafers and recommends a battery-powered world—works at a grassroots level handing out flashlights.  quasar.  quark.  a quirk of speech.  a large silver mouthpiece.  his lips flapping around inside tepid metal.  tuba.  he waves from a caboose like a pro.  can wave from a caboose with the best of them,  but it’s plain he never took a music lesson.  his teenage daughter frequents an alleged mafioso establishment.  pull your arrow from its quiver, and watch rose petals fall.  silent satellites beam a thousand eyes at quiescent Quakers.

 

 S

 

in the sanctity of the home mother indoctrinates

junior while daddy wins the bacon.  crackling grease

of apprehension spurs the child toward revolt.  the barn

on fire, their neighing stallion bucks and gallops off

in flames. food coloring camouflages the emptiness

of his diet.  chickens roast, their broken eggs sizzling

into omelets.  a conversion ignites the barnyard into

a raucous chorus. by then mommy and daddy grow

old.  looking back at the disaster, junior concludes

it wasn’t all bad—he survived.  it smolders.  he kicks

dirt over it.  it persists.  all parties refuse to withdraw.

delicate emotions leaf out—dependencies behind

which they hide.  shields.  & the egyptians buried me

alive to attend the prince.  that sucker!  still,

i love the egyptians.

 

      T

 

time.  forget it.  it will leave you behind.

an increment is too much.  the tzar collects

sawdust.  now his saw needs sharpening.

teeth.  rust.  tomorrow.  they captured

the bengal tiger that terrorized us.  Mrs. A.,

the wife of a british railroad official,  is

expected to birth the first test-tube baby

in approximately eight months.

 

U

usurper.  union.  the axe and club.  put that fucker in place.

orb shouldered across horizon by dung beetle.  a chariot. 

crossbow.  cannon.  in feudal times those who loved their lord  

received his bounty.  his stone wall protected—no loss of freedom. 

our pilot took off, ripping through a blanket of starlings—

smoking feathers in the jets.  though well above clouds, not a single

detail forgotten.  that dream in which you stand at the top

of a steeply vertical building and must jump to a narrow

ledge far below,  where you necessarily leap further

to reach ground.  the first jump ruins knees or ankles or both—

if you make it.  and the second…  the uprising spurred on

by those who stood to gain.  the propellers.  i knelt

to kiss his ring.

 

◈◈◈◈                                              ◈◈◈◈                                              ◈◈◈◈

 

          V

 

down  a  narrow

 

cobbled  avenue

 

around  a  curve

 

to  a  cul-de-sac

 

 

and  into an

 

an empty  cinema

 

 

in  air

 

conditioned

 

darkness

 

 

where  we  

 

drown out  

 

the world

 

where  our

 

sorrow

 

goes  on.

 

 

image-velum,

 

veil,   psyche’s

 

communal  membrane

 

issuing  sharks

 

 

sharks!

 

⦿

 

            Sj Weinberg

            September 11, 1980

 

NOTE: M, N, P, and V were included in one of seven Chinatown lined blank books of various sizes.  

The version of V above is more developed and revised than the blank-book , handwritten draft; 

and it is the version above I’m sure I used for vocal improvisation.

 

◈◈◈◈                                              ◈◈◈◈                                              ◈◈◈◈

 

 

Y

she said, “you think so,” out of the blue air,

“drinking tea quiets the mind.”  i didn’t

understand but ventured a guess and said,

“yes, the one who holds the feather

holds the floor. there is no leader here.”

          a traveling feather.

anything may go unsaid. in dire circumstance.

a Chinese bell may ring.  listen, we stand on the same

ground. you think someone should know about it—

someone does. you do. if you think the door

should be locked, lock it. that would be good.

the animal dance is in session. your bear

claw—as insubstantial as theory.  you may

growl.  such lovely

thighs.  i tell you

i don’t know.

 

◈◈◈◈                                              ◈◈◈◈                                              ◈◈◈

 

A

 

Attack     Attack     Attack     Attack

is  the  watchword  of  our  fathers

and  of  our  forefathers  and  of

ourselves  on  this  continent  we

love  for  its  expansiveness.

we  are  the  military

                          we are the military

nation  of  men  and  women  always

ready  to  attack

                 take  by  storm

                  the  shore

for  glory  and  for  gold.

yes  we  are  new  Spaniards

claiming

by  force

lands

of  those

who  refuse

to  buckle

under  at

a  simple

sounding

of  our  name.

we  are  the  U.S.  of  A.

 

 

B

 

bread  and  water  and  the  love  

of  our  spouses  and  faith  have

never  been  enough.  to  baste

our  bodies  in  the  blood

of  weaker  nations  is

high  ceremony  echoing

christ’s   sacrement.

 

guzzling  raw  borscht

from  the  still  hairy

skulls  of  our  enemies

we  holy  conquerors

hereafter  and  forever

bear  the  one  true

word  and  our  all-engaging

violence  forward

in  warm  snifters

once  the  heads

of  our  brothers

 

 

D

 

in  the  dead  of  night  lit

by  flares  scribing  the  air

overhead  he  made  his  way

to  the  throat  of  a

yellow  man  and  slit

it  there  and  took

his  coat.

 

 

E

 

 

invisible  coded  messages

 

bouncing  off  the  E  layer  and

 

flying  death  ships

 

of  the  E  region  make  a

 

case  in  point  that

 

what  cannot  be  seen

 

may  hurt  you.   out  of

 

sight  driving

 

you  out

 

of  your  mind.   and

 

the  fear  is

 

all  of  ours.   if  it

 

could  only  be  erased . . .

 

but  Eos  would

 

then  be

 

the  death  of  us.

 

                                              ◈◈◈◈

 

NOTE: On the recording, “Eos” sounds like “eels.”

 

◈◈◈◈                                              ◈◈◈◈                                              ◈◈◈◈

 

NOTE

On September 28, 2015, I finally found in a cardboard box, in a room storing at least thirty-five cardboard boxes of books, my handwritten collection A Feather—26 Letters, including alphabet poems/letter meditations originally written while working on Vashon Island, June and July 1978 (when I was twenty-eight years old). I dedicated the book to Sheila, who I met that summer in Seattle. I also shared this book with my mother, who died of cancer only a few years after reading it. Inside my little book is a folded piece of yellow paper upon which my dear mum noted my misspelled words (which I’ve now corrected while revising). I owe my love of the written word to my mother, Pearl Molofsky Weinberg (Peggy), and I smile when I recall her considerate reminder that the word “across” has only one C.

 

Note: In trusting to subterranean, associative levels of letters, visual words 

frequently feature the letter under consideration/meditation positioned silently or secondarily

mid word. Also there are instances of spontaneous homonym (eye and i). My method 

was/is intuitional, not entirely rational, and I break with rules of capitalization 

and punctuation, yielding to the poem. I might capitalize a name to avoid confusion, 

or at times I favor a period where a question mark might be more correct, drawn toward 

a kind of ambiguity that makes sense to me and, I believe, will make sense to a reader 

willing to go with the nature of the phrasing. When first composed, and in recent processes 

of revision, I cozied up to enigma while pitting irrational intuition and cold rationality 

against each other. Likewise, visual and vocal elements contend with each other. When reading the original pieces along with instrumental music and sound, I, like my playful compatriots, followed the spontaneity of interactive moments. I favored lower case, putting greater emphasis on line breaks and spacing for clarification.

 

NOTE: Alphabet poems. I realized the potential of mining the alphabet as an indefatigable source in approximately 1974. I cannot claim any deep understanding of Kabbalah, but my readings about Jewish mysticism and fascination with the physical and metaphysical and psychological/spiritual depths and limits of letters gradually set me to exploring them in poems and prose poems, setting my mind free in a meditative mode, also at times relinquishing my will to the kind of automatic writing I understood figured into surrealistic experimentation. I wished to arrive at unpredictable ends and to discover levels of my personal alphabet. My alphabet prose poems were originally written/calligraphed by hand for more directly sensual and personal connection with letters. 

 

I had studied calligraphy in a cursory way in 1971 and practiced it sincerely in my own quirky style with pen and then with Japanese brushes. I recall an inspiring workshop led by a serious scholar and devotee of the influential calligrapher Lloyd Reynolds. Young Tim Girvin, then a fellow student at Evergreen State College, assisted in that workshop and later calligraphically interpreted a small collection of Issa poems my friend and fellow poet George Evans and I translated from Japanese. George worked the literal translations, and we collaborated on creating versions in English. I believe Tim sold the work to a private collector. I discovered a photocopy of the manuscript while in search for my little book of alphabet poems.

 

◈◈◈◈                                              ◈◈◈◈                                              ◈◈◈◈

 

 

 

Please go to thomasager.com for a complete description of this remarkable project recorded in 1985 and featuring Thomas Ager, Paul Dusenbury and poet, Steven Weinberg.

TRACK 4

 

And These Words Were His Only Arteries

Imaginary Houses and Buildings

 

 

Self-conscious.  I  feel  like  a  suburban  kitchen.  To tell

 

myself something: “steel sink … dishwasher.”  The  attempt

 

must  be  made.

 

            I  was  eating potato  salad  when,

 

through  no  reason,  I  knew  it  wasn’t  another  place.  It

 

was  the  same  suburban  kitchen  and  hung  there as

 

an artifact.

 

        A  piece  of  road  placed  ahead  and  behind,

 

I  was  tireless.  The  road  was  equally  without substance—

 

a stocking to be removed.   ⦿⦿   The  piece  of  road

                  

a  rotten  door  and  cracked  enough  for  wind

 

to shriek through.  A  potato  print.

 

             The  window frame  floated  behind  him.

 

The  door  and  frame  of  window  behind  him.     Where

 

the livestock’s golden wool?  Behind him.   He

 

stepped out of the mud—the Anywhere.   He

 

didn’t  have  a  throat.   And  these  words  

 

were his  only arteries. 

 

       

NOTE: Listening to the recording after three decades, the following line jumped out at me:  

                        “And these words were/ his only arteries.”

 

 

 

IMAGINARY   HOUSES

              sketches

 

      ONE.

 

from  a  glass

bedroom

with  aquarium

walls

 

past fish

 

into  quilled

hallway

 

to  a  bathroom

with  blue

sink  guarded

 

by  stuffed  marlin

and  waterbuffalo  head

 

where  I  bathe

In  murky  water

 

from  a  red

ceramic

carboy

 

and  listen

to wife’s

cowrie  shells

rattle  around

her  neck  and

ankles  in

our  quiet

atrium

 

a  usual

motionless  lizard

asleep

in  the  crease

of  a giant  frond.

 

            ⦿

 

   

TWO.

 

this  one

built  with

adobe  brick

 

 

is

serpent

 

 

on

hardpan

 

 

the  door

behind

fangs  and

awning  jaw

 

 

cool

to the touch

 

       ⦿

 

 

    THREE.

 

long  horizontal  steel  glass  and

aggregate  cantilever out

over  hillside  suburbia

above  freeway

 

 

ice  melting

in  whiskey

 

 

each  thought

precedes

another

 

 

slipping

 

 

into

stark  blue

 

 

sky trousers

 

    ⦿⦿⦿

 

Sj Weinberg

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

INTERLUDE:

      Imaginary House #5

 

 

 

ice-domed

 

igloo

 

sparkling

 

sunlight

 

 

far over the hill

 

of one shoulder

 

            ⦿

 

 

 

Sj Weinberg

     9.16.82

 

Handwritten draft

entered from a

Chinatown 

empty book

October 8, 2016.

 

NOTE: On 8 October 2016, I discovered the handwritten version, one of eight Imaginary Houses, the eighth crossed out, and number five, above, titled as an interlude. In the moment of improvising with Thomas and Paul, I intuitively selected this poem and riffed on the image, repeating lines to integrate with their sounds and my connection to the poem.

 

 

i, highrise—i am/i am not

            a building

 

living  in  the  building

 

that,  yes,  is  my  body  or

 

some  facsimile  thereof,

 

exoskeleton  immersed  in

 

pains  plaited  by  so  much

 

resistance  to  taking

 

an  erect  stance  in

 

the  face of . . .

 

but  I’ve  no  need  to  tell  you

 

what  bends,  gives  you  the  bends,

 

my  friend

 

windows  aren’t  quake-proof

 

one  good  wave  of  the  earth

 

and  glass  flies  

 

guillotine  blades  unleashed

 

toward  busy  consumers  and

 

business-folk  flopping

 

fish-like  on cement sidewalk

 

my  foundation  isn’t  buffered

 

by  a  large  Teflon  plate  and,

 

anyway,  physical  substance

 

is  a  fraction  of  the  formula

 

determining  yield  and  resistance

 

to  vectors  of  force—please

 

refer  to  

 

arrows  on  blueprint:

 

pg 4,  section B-9,

 

“i am/i am not

 

a  building”

 

refer to

 

Human Anatomy—

Facts and Foibles

of Mortal Design

 

my  identity  isn’t

 

absolutely  quantifiable

 

refer  to

 

lines  of  introduction  in

 

Modern Social Discourse,

Ch.6 “Boredom is Being”:

 

“How do you do?

My  name  is . . . “

 

that  woman  has  big  tits

 

i  wonder  about  her  quim,

 

these  unspoken  thoughts

 

i  see  on  the  face  of  a  man

 

that  man  appears  to  be  a

 

sexy  breadwinner  and  i  bet

 

he’d  fall  prey  to  my

 

interior  designs,

 

a  woman  daydreams

 

for  days  and  nights

 

in  succession

 

a  feeling,  a  stainless

 

steel  elevator  rising

 

64 floors,  starts

 

in  the  balls  of  my  feet

 

and  charges  

 

through  spine  

 

‘til  it  blows  off

 

my  head.

 

all  my  office  cubicles

 

overflow  with  nausea  at

 

thoughts  of  making  order

 

 

of  all  the  papers

 

on  all  my  desks.

 

the  corps  of  sad  little

 

union  janitors  open

 

black  lunch  pails

 

but  can’t  bring  themselves

 

to  unwrap  wax  paper

 

from  white  sandwiches.

 

my  video  cameras  set

 

on  all  entrances  and  exits

 

reveal  no  intruders

 

according  to  my  security  guards

 

who  i  trust  implicitly

 

to  scan  my  monitors

 

nerve  center

 

accurately  programmed

 

triggers  lights  precisely.

 

for  some  days  now

 

i’ve  felt  like

 

a  shiny  man

 

made  of  steel

 

and  glass

 

but  i  worry

 

that  the  world

 

is  only  using  me

 

that  i  am  temporary

 

that  the  earth  itself

 

may  cave  in

 

beneath  me.

 

 

H

 

it  is  likely  it  will  remain  unquantifiable.

at  its  height  it  manufactured  the  great  civilizations.

in  retrospect,  too  early  to  say  what  is  going  on.

we’ll  know  later perhaps.  maybe  not  . . . 

the  hordes,  whoever  they  are,  may

never  know.  whatever  it  is.  pure  speculation

is  one  of  the  few  joys  left.  any  subject  will  do.

or  none  at  all.  the  hours  are  confined  to

60  minutes  a  piece.  which  is  stifling

no  matter  which  way  you  look  at  them.

too  short  or  too  long.  hail  stones

have  instigated  a  broad  appreciation

for  hats  this  winter.  at  the  brim  of

certain  jagged  edges

ideas  occur  and  fall

away.  water  to  ice

back  to  water  again  is

the  natural  progression  we

have  come  to  expect  but

water  to  gaseous  cloud

returning  in  fine  spray

is  a  statistical  calculation

meteorologists  divine  as

another  variable  to  be  considered.

 

          information  filters  down

          to  the  masses  and  soaks

          in  slowly

          after  a  long  time

          and  after  experts

          have  turned

          in  for  the  evening

          with  other,  newer,

          equations  stopping

          up  their  gutters  and

          drainpipes.  

 

we,  who

equate  the  weather  with

intelligence,  can’t  put

a  price  tag  on  our

yellow  rain  slickers

but  are  notorious  for

ignoring  the  roofs

of  our  houses.

   

 

 

 

 

Please go to thomasager.com for a complete description of this remarkable project recorded in 1985 and featuring Thomas Ager, Paul Dusenbury and poet, Steven Weinberg.

TRACK 5

 

Silence: Other People Talk as if They Have One—A Voice

Yourself (a modern blues)

 

 

 

miracle story

 

before the words came to mouth

 

and  though  machines  were  well oiled

 

the sleek fist

 

        a bird

 

hit its target

 

worming up through sod

 

and divided its prey—

 

 

 

owning this act

 

he spoke

 

and cut his partner

 

away from silence

 

as well,  the deaf and deafening

 

steel set in motion

 

so many people

 

trained to know

 

the works of their invention

 

which came to be a border

 

to their refinement

 

and measure

 

of imagination.

 

 

 

incredible

 

silence

 

undivided

 

itself  became

 

a breeding ground

 

for quiet

 

that could not be located

 

and  remained  undiminished

 

despite action

 

and the products of action

 

inbreeding to

 

unknown  conclusions.

 

                          ⦿

 

Sj Weinberg

              January 1984

 

 

Untitled/Undated  

   (early or mid 1980s)

 

edge come

of the choice made

in what is all

of a piece   ⦿.

 

a constant question

turned statement

at time of

definition    ⦿.

 

as much asphalt

highway as the alder

and fir    ⦿.

 

kick a boot off

kick a head in

kick a stone

always eat lying down

don’t chew your food so well

           the bigger the ball

           in your stomach

           the longer its

           separate life

 

first she said:

if I could leave this planet

i would

 

then she did.

 

NOTE: I much enjoyed a feature on the IBM Selectric typewriter—the interchangeable type balls with different fonts, and the way I could type over letters to create odd monograms and visual symbols to embellish space, to note ends of lines, stanzas, paragraphs, or entire compositions. In current computer versions, like the one above, I have made do with available symbols. In original typed Selectric copies the word spacing is wider than computer versions, so I often inserted two spaces between words where I deemed it necessary to approximate the original. Much of mid-20thcentury and contemporary American poetry regards the visual poem as a score for the voice, as well as a printed document for the eye. Spacing, therefore, becomes an important element. The reader should be able to read the voice with eye where the poet strays from more traditional/conventional typographic representation. The poem lives in the nexus of eye/voice/body/imagination/emotion/intellection.

 

 

living  

room

 

sun

 

 

an

 

irish  setter

 

 

running

 

 

then  sinking

    

 

down

 

behind

 

 

our  couch

  ….

 

 

2.   moon

 

 

      television

 

 

      shameless

 

      mirror

      ….

 

 

                            Sj Weinberg

                            Revised 1983

 

 

NOTE:  When improvising with Nobodaddy on our 1986 Whidbey Island reel-to-reel analog recording, I plucked part two for inclusion in our rollin’ and tumblin’ play, intuitively latched on to the image, skipping over part one entirely.  The revised 1983 draft favors a pared down version of the original draft.

 

 

VOICE

 

NIETHER SING

ULAR NOR PLURAL

 

it/they

 

move(s),  a

 

wind  sweeping

 

or  rain  falling,

 

naturally.

 

it,

 

they,

 

include(s)  you,

 

me,  events,

 

rhythms,  pre-,

 

present,  and

 

post.

 

i’ve  heard  people  talk

 

as  if  they  have  one—

 

a  voice.  or

 

of  developing  one:  traders

 

in  a  market,  salesman

 

who  misrepresent

 

the  facts.  as  if  there

 

were  facts.

 

 

 

 

range & depth #4

 

          for Sheila

 

out  of  night  sky—

 

rain

 

 

 a thousand razors  

dive

 

                                slash

 

darkness

 

                                to shreds. 

 

 

 

so much black

 

confetti our fears

 

ripped and

 

scattered.

 

 

 

wind’s

 

transparent

 

foreground   background

 

reconciliation:

movement

 

and rest

 

ranging  through

 

thick red

 

hair  while

tussling

 

her skirt.

 

   Sj Weinberg  

Revised 10.11.2016

 

 

NOTE: This draft is made from three different drafts of this poem—

              all exhibiting points of varied word choice and spacing .   

 

 

YOURSELF (a modern blues)

 

     you gotta feel somebody

     else through yourself

 

you can’t feel someone

else without yourself

 

     you can’t feel anybody

     ‘til you felt yourself

 

when you feel somebody

else how much

do you feel them

for yourself

 

and when you feel somebody

else how

do you feel yourself

 

                     when you feel like yourself

                     how much do you feel

                     like somebody else

 

                        and when you feel somebody

else how much do you feel

like yourself

    [REPEAT]

 

O do you ever

really feel

like yourself

 

do you ever

    really feel

    like yourself

              ⦿

 

 

                        Sj Weinberg

                                     October 25, 1975

 

 

 

Please go to thomasager.com for a complete description of this remarkable project recorded in 1985 and featuring Thomas Ager, Paul Dusenbury and poet, Steven Weinberg.

TRACK 6

 

In the Lower World

 

Neither written nor discovered in the order presented below (rediscovered in boxes August 2015 & October 2016/handwritten or typed early 1980s). Some versions dated 1983.

 

 

1.

In the lower world

 

admiring a window and its frame.  a wooden frame oiled, by appearances never

 

painted.  oiled-wood-sheen surrounds a window of old rippled glass.

 

glass in motion, active, and old glass thicker at pane bottom.

 

i am inclined to feel the thickening window jammed or painted shut.

 

watching glass ripple light it throws down at an angle across the floor.

 

a sun.  some say more than one…

 

That may have been a thought of my own.  no use in concern with

 

speculation as to—outside.  this window meets two worlds and

 

will not open.  glass ripples with various tensions and pressures

 

straining (striving) to own the window.  i don’t know.  here, physics

 

remains secret but to those who pass freely, like light through

 

a window, back and forth between places.  I believe in other rooms

 

and windows—rooms with people and windows that open. 

 

no sound indicates anyone anywhere and rippled glass only reveals

 

blurrrs, dapples, colors.  at least this … 

 

 

 

 

2.

In the lower world

 

with a wall.  its unending beauty not impinging on imagination.

 

a wall, its color feeling head-on and from disparate angles, maintains

 

color.  am having a somewhat cerebral discussion with a friend

 

who is in charge of painting walls, determining proper colors.

 

in fact, there is a wall in back of offices downstairs,

 

beyond the administrative wing, where he conducts

 

color tests.  that wall painted as many as four times in a week. 

 

i’ve stood with him before that wall and discussed qualities

 

of a wall/a color.  a wall, unselfconscious, can suddenly capture

 

you in its forthrightness and strength.  some bear the load while

 

the job of others is to separate and/or create

 

specific places.

 

This wall stands alone and has a door in the middle,

 

a satisfyingly high wall—it is monumental.  as we know, 

 

there are stage walls only meant to impart an illusion

 

of strength, made in a manner to easily bring them down.

 

this one, the wall we are discussing,

 

is not one of those.

 

 

 

 

3.

Once in the lower world

 

i met  someone  who  resembled  you.   (not) the way you look (but)/and

 

every  other  way.   this person was sometimes:  owl.   other  times  it

 

loped  along  shorthaired  and  alert.   it  could  (not)  hide  by  changing

 

shape  or  disguising  its  voice.   I  could  (not)  see  into  it.   it  could(n’t)

 

frighten  me  by  turning  inside out.   I  was  (not)  frightened  and  told  it

 

i could read it.   I  could  see  its  whole  life  from  incubation  on,  like  a  

 

motion  picture.   it  stopped  hiding  itself,  there  was  no  use  hiding,  

 

and  showed  itself.   it,  I say it,  was  (not)  like you in every/(no) detail  

 

of  its  character.   it  was  (not)  you.   And  went  away  leaving  something/

 

(nothing)  behind. 

 

 

 

NOTE: In the Lower World contradictory states coincide.

 

 

4.

In the lower world

 

every  thing  whispers.   trees have a way.   like  a child

 

whispering  a  feared thing.   like  this child  telling  a

 

forbidden  secret,  a confidence broken,  weakness  seeps

 

into  the  child’s  voice.   a tree will  whisper knowledge

 

before  it  falls,  having  creaked  all  its  days  to  hide  it.

 

birds carrying knowledge of trees  whistle  what  can

 

only  be  whispered,  inspiring soft translations.   everyone

 

in the lower world knows this.   It is imparted here.   there

 

isn’t  a  way  to  keep  it  out.   everyone  knowing,  adds to it.

 

 

 

5.

In the lower world

 

there  are  volumes  beyond  number,  books  describing  

 

all permutations of possible circumstance.   and  to read

 

one volume   is to want to enter them all.   and

 

there are those who think in time,

 

being infinite,  as it is there—

 

all  of  these  volumes  can  be  devoured.

 

 

 

they are the ones who are pitied.

 

they are the ones, whose tortured  minds

 

sink lower

 

to worlds for which there is

 

no description.

 

 

         Sj Weinberg

                             3.18.1983

 

 

               NOTE: Digitally entered, accounting for variables

               in multiple copies, 8 October 2016.

 

 

 

 

 

Please go to thomasager.com for a complete description of this remarkable project recorded in 1985 and featuring Thomas Ager, Paul Dusenbury and poet, Steven Weinberg.

TRACK 7

Lion Paws of Fire / A Music on the Verge of Percussion

 

praises to a woman like a lion

 

give  me  your  lion  paws  of  fire  and  venus sparks

in  the  woods

no frightful bowl of condiments

behind a tree

our  ears

buried in the backyard

are corkscrew clouds

yanking sky

I  praise  your  glow

o words

want high winds too

but  my  tongue

grazing in thoughts

as a pony in a meadow

wishes to be on the other side

of barbed wire

 

    so my praise

    frames the door     as you walk through it

    runs hot in the shower      as you take one

    rises from your stew      as you eat it

 

and if geese are born in your right hand

as daggers take shape in your left

it’s a fair gamble

birds will swim in my blood

before you’re done with me

 

    so I set your mane ablaze

    with compliments

    from the very start

 

        ⦿

 

         Sj Weinberg

 

 

 

 

Untitled

 

on  a  reef  a  frmmm  of  strings

loosely wound on their pegs

 

thwap  against  necks

 

a  music  on  the verge  of  percussion

 

a  twaddle  of  sounds

unwinds

 

from  cello   guitar

violin   viola   slack piano strings

 

(cocked  piano  hammer

worn  pick

unraveled  bow)

 

in  our  mutual

dissonance

 

we  join

and  can’t

stop  coming

 

in  our

swirl

of  disorder

 

we  come  and  come

 

   ⦿

 

       Sj Weinberg

               

 

NOTE:  Most of the pieces in the binder containing the above poem, part of a coherent short manuscript, are not dated. The ones dated range from 1979 to 1983.  This poem/verbal score is another example of one that accrues power in Nobodaddy’s driving, spontaneous performance. Such an assessment is from the point of view of hearing the recordings after thirty years, pleasantly surprised at our energy and synched musical/verbal intuition.

 

 

 

Please go to thomasager.com for a complete description of this remarkable project recorded in 1985 and featuring Thomas Ager, Paul Dusenbury and poet, Steven Weinberg.

TRACK 8

 

November—29—5:30 a.m.

 

darkness

a  measurement

for  waking

 

 

moon

disavows

perfect

darkness

 

 

&   limits

of   space            

indeterminate        

    

 

it’s  time            

to  go  to  work        

                    

 

early

to  the  job

                    

                             

of  spending            

warmth            

 

 

shovel  after            

shovel  of

earth                

 

                

taken from

one spot

to another

 

how many shovels

of earth

make an earth

 

 

warmth

      sweat

make a definition

of self

 

the

task

is the

man

performed

 

 

shovelful

of  life

 

 

a  task

of  weight

lifting

weight

to  what

purpose

 

 

the question

 

 

undoes

the  questioner

                    

                    

but  acts                

as  rule                    

to  measure                

complacency                

                    

                    

all                    

measurement                

meaningless            

                    

    in the face

    of not finding

    face

  &

                still  a precision

                is  maintained  in

                light

                in  weight

                in  the  warmth

                and  sweat

                    in  the  motion

                    of  life’s

                    daily

                    work

 

                                  ⦿

 

                            Sj Weinberg

                            Published 1985

                            Staple Diet/

                            Pig Press

                            Durham, England

 

 

 

 

Please go to thomasager.com for a complete description of this remarkable project recorded in 1985 and featuring Thomas Ager, Paul Dusenbury and poet, Steven Weinberg.

TRACK 9:    1:12:35

 

Film Noir

not  listening

 

phillip marlowe’s

black wool socks

 

 

with dark blue

clocks

 

 

white gulls  and  black crows

pass  between  buildings and

telephone wires  over

alleyway

 

 

discs

wheels

belts

cog silence

 

 

a woman’s smooth

ear streams by

in a red carmen ghia

 

 

the ear

passive

 

 

emerging from slow

flicker-movie walk

through alternating

cold shadow

warm sunlight

 

 

the well-dressed

detective

 

 

is not listening

                      ⦿

Sj Weinberg

 

2/9—2/10 1982

NOTE: transcribed from handwritten original October 8, 2016

 

 

A  Mystery

                                  film noir

 

taking  a  place

 

on  the  scene

 

behind  camera

 

 

arranging

 

    composing

 

fluid  visuals

 

 

to  the  extent

 

within  control

 

 

they  slip

 

away

 

 

each  element

 

moving  to  state

 

itself  purely

 

 

denies

 

vision

 

 

the  ideogram

 

states  itself

 

 

man      floating      pond      window

 

 

which loosely translates as

 

 

the  man’s imagination  is

 

a  window  onto  water

 

or

 

projecting  himself  through

 

his  illusion

 

he  floats  there

 

or

 

the  man

 

floating  on  a  pond

 

opens  himself

 

or

 

man-pond

 

floating

 

in  window

 

or

 

afloat

 

on  a  pond

 

it  passes

 

 

and  closing  one  eye

 

i  shot  the  scene

 

leaving  it

 

to  state  itself

 

 

within  boundaries

 

not

 

mine

 

          ⬧⬧⬧

 

 

 

ringlets

 

     opening  outward—

 

(a tight shot opening out

    

and back

 

slowly            the lens

 

may  be  our

 

window

 

               the  one  we  share

 

microcosm

 

of  the  other

 

one)

 

 

expanded

 

by  them

 

 

eyes  come

 

to  resemble

 

ponds

 

    (outside  the  frame

 

    standing  or  sitting

    

    on the bank  a

 

    swimmer   daydreamer   or

 

    bodhisattva  leaves

 

    or  enters  a  reverie

 

    to  throw

 

    a  stone  mindfully

 

    or  mindlessly

 

into  our  sphere

 

within  a  rectangle) —

 

 

a  twig  snaps

 

 

wind  rattles

 

dry  husks

 

        ⬧⬧⬧

 

(film noir)

 

 

no  longer  penetrating

 

the  eye  of  the  mask

 

 

leaving  the  interior

 

&  crust  of  the  organism

 

to  fragile  networkings

 

 

riding

 

a  shriveling  flower

 

into  oblivious sleep

 

 

a  rusty  gate

 

clanks  over  dirt

 

driveway

 

 

hungry  ghosts  divide

 

their  tithe

 

   the  darkness

 

 

(camera  spinning

 

like  a  gyroscope

 

captures  fragments

 

comedy

 

and light :

 

 

      tortured  eye

 

 

      blinding  headlight

 

  intruding  on

 

  temporarily  frozen

 

  luminaries —

 

 

  Trespass

 

   ⬧⬧⬧

 

october

 

pumpkins  filled  with  blood

 

 

bones  scattered

 

between  a  row  of  broccoli

 

and  a  row  of  corn

 

 

large  green  squash  twisting

 

from  vines  fill

 

a  woven  basket

 

 

moles   turn   dark   earth

 

 

        luminous  moon  bone

 

        leaf  claw

 

        nodding  pine

 

        virgin cedar

 

 

hungry  ghosts

 

and  the unborn

 

strain  toward  a  future

 

extending  out  beyond

 

the  meadow  and

 

hand-split  fence

 

 

knife  in  a  pumpkin

 

spilling  blood

 

 from  its  orange hull

 

      ⬧⬧⬧

 

 

august

 

bright  yellow

 

corn stalks

 

 

rise  tall

 

above

 

 

a  white  dress

 

drenched

 

red

 

⬧⬧⬧

 

at   the  bar

 

he  sips  a  beer

 

eats  peanuts

 

 

perspiration

 

 

(slow   zoom

 

close-up)

his  eyes

 

in  the  mirror

 

 

approaching

 

behind him

 

 

the  widow:

 

“there  is  a  pond

 

not  far  from  here

 

 

10  minutes

 

by car

 

 

there  is  something

 

there  i  wish  to

 

show  you”

 

   ⬧⬧⬧

 

car  door

 

opens

 

 

legs  rustle

 

tall grass

 

 

a  tree

 

 

they  walk

 

beneath  it

 

 

                 ( fade

                               to

              black  .   .   .  

 

        Sj Weinberg

Originally handwritten into 

a small Chinatown empty book

        1981—Seattle, WA

 

 

NOBODADDY IN THE LOWER WORLD

 

1986 four-track readings/musical improvisations (Thomas Ager, Paul Dusenbury, Steven J. Weinberg

 August 2015 and October to November 2016 I entered writings digitally from handwritten documents, from writings originally typed on IBM Selectric, and from pieces published in the late Ric Cadell’s STAPLE DIET issue featuring my poems (PIG PRESS/issue #7_September ’85). 

 

Reflections:  Nobodaddy in the Lower World

When naming our fully collaborative triad of like-minded fellows out for good times, ready to lose our minds in sounds/words/music, William Blake’s mythology and illuminated poetry occupied my thinking—not in a deep or scholarly manner, but I co-opted and made sense of his term Nobodaddy in my own way. I was about to become a father, and I responded to “Nobodaddy” as “nobody’s daddy.” I was soon to become somebody’s daddy, a beautiful little girl born August 25, 1986 (Ariadne Claire Weinberg). 

 

I had been reading books of interviews, of studies, or of transcriptions from shaman from around the world, so the idea of a “lower world” (or lower worlds)—other states simultaneous with consensus realities—played upon my imagination and addressed inexplicable experiences from intensive LSD experimentation at age 16-17. Music and sound as vehicles for traveling into other states of mind and experience, and to celebrate spontaneous, timeless Now, is an ancient concept and practice—most often employing drums, rattles, horns, bells, voice/chant/poetry, etc. Thomas, a dedicated investigator into ethnographic music and recordings (OCORA/Radio France), shared astounding indigenous global music from his extensive collection of LPs, opening my mind to something already residing in my heart and temperament. He also possessed a wide-ranging library of jazz recordings (still does)—extending my haphazard, but life-changing early exposure to Thelonius Monk, Sonny Rollins, and others. 

 

When I was thirteen, I purchased a Monk album because the cover intrigued me. Who was this guy in a profile portrait painting, sitting in the cockpit of a prop plane? The LP, SOLO MONK (a late Monk recording on the COLUMBIA label), made me question what music could be. Were those mistakes, or were those, what I later knew as blue notes, purposeful soundings? The more I listened, the more I understood. I would lay down on a thinly carpeted floor, my head evenly between the speakers of our console record player, close my eyes, and open myself to Monk’s sounds and defined spaces between single notes and chords assembled in angular clusters, his pianistic inventions transporting my impressionable consciousness. At age sixteen, disappointed with my junior prom, I grabbed my date after fifteen minutes of mirrorball-lighting among masses of stiff, formally attired adolescents and teacher chaperones, and whisked her off to see the English film ALFIE, soundtrack by Sonny Rollins. The next day, in a state of excited anticipation, I purchased the soundtrack (double album, IMPULSE label). That same year I attended by myself a jazz festival sponsored by The Left Bank Jazz Society, at Laurel Race Track (Laurel, Maryland), and sat close by the stage with a kind young film crew, the stage graced with the presence of such luminaries as Monk, Rollins, Cannonball Adderly, Gary Burton, Art Blakey, and a host of others. Thomas knows jazz inside out, and years later he kindly shared his insights and knowledge—personal, historical, mainstream, and esoteric. That we also played together in Nobodaddy is one of those treasures of a time, a place, and a friendship that continues into the mysteries of aging, time passing and not passing.

 

In the mid 80s, both Thomas and I were involved in Zen meditation, a very different approach/perspective rooted in practicing single-minded breath identification and stillness. Enough said. That is how we met, and is when our friendship originally formed in a foggy, gray Seattle.

 

Thomas and Paul had a separate history of friendship, collaboration, and mutual respect based upon their simpatico temperaments and passionate interests in art and music. I hope Thomas will write about their connections and progression as friends and musicians. Paul’s untimely, unnecessary death makes our recording together all the more precious.

From the beginning of my necessary involvements with poetry, 1970 (a year of deep, sustained depression in need of poetic exorcism), I was drawn to the power of word, line, stanza, alphabetic and graphic eye experience, and voice/body verbal knowledge. I learned that understanding and knowing a difficult poem often comes from reading it aloud, allowing it to enter the voice/body and resonate there, then filter to a more literal, interpretive comprehension. The voice, the American idiom (finding one’s own particular American voice) and poetic play of diction and syntax, opened my mind (heart and head and body) to intellectual, emotional, and (though the words are sticky) spiritual/metaphysical possibilities. Reading aloud (summer 1971/College Park, Maryland) from Galway Kinnell’s Book of Nightmares, did exorcise painfully-intrusive dark images from my mind. One summer morning, following many months of psychological disturbance and pain, as I read aloud from Kinnell’s book, my mind cleared, disturbing imagery vanishing once and for all, and my mind settled, my heart stilled itself. Words, specifically poetry read aloud, cured me. The world and I were cleansed, renewed. Years later, I had the good fortune to attend a reading at the University of Maryland where I personally thanked Galway Kinnell for his healing book-length poem. I had learned great lessons concerning poetry embodied in actual vocal soundings of distilled, composed language.

 

Formalities and freedoms, forms and so-called open form, challenged (still challenge) what a poem is and can become. The prose-poem appealed to me from the very start as one way to defy limitations of prose and strictures of traditional poetic forms. Just as the body lives in space, occupies and reshapes it when moving through it, letters, words, lines, sentences, stanzas, and paragraphs dance on the page or in the air, and almost always in the mind. Simultaneously, the advantages of varying forms became clearer, and the possibility of taking advantage of compositional opportunities and intuiting their benefits for mining insights and composing expression were furthered in reading widely and writing adventurously. I write to discover what is there to discover, and to know what I can know. Furthermore, poetry and acts of writing heal me. 

 

Arrangements of words—visual and aural—charm a reader. Likewise, music/sound strike the flesh of a listener and/or a player. Thomas Ager, Paul Dusenbury, and I came together to play with concentrated abandon, to discover and focus whatever we would playfully create.

             Sj Weinberg—August 12, 2015 and October 4&28-29, and November 15, 2016

 

NOTE: Facebook Post/August 2015, response to a question by Richard Wells: 

I don't remember when Thomas Ager, Paul Dusenbury, and I started shivering sound molecules together, but we did have our one public performance in 1986 at New City Poetry (at New City Theater, the building later occupied by The Richard Hugo House). I curated a year of readings (second Monday of the month), the first literary series from that old mortuary building turned theater, in 1985-1986. I am grateful to the New City Theater folks (John Kazanjian, Jim Ragland, and Charlie Rathbun) for opening their heads, hearts, and theater for excellent poets: Steven Bernstein, George Evans, August Kleinzahler, Kirby Olsen, Richard Caddel, Marilyn Stablein, Phillip Yellowhawk Minthorn, Kenward Elmslie, Elizabeth Woody, our Nobodaddy in the Lower World, and others. I gave the take at the door to the poets, made a spot for writers from out of town to sleep in our one-bedroom apartment at The Deluxe Apartments on Capitol Hill (18th and Howell), and I bought the beer. So, Nobodaddy in the Lower World (our full name) predated the readings series, but I don't remember exactly when we decided to lose our minds for the first time.

 

NOTE: The Lower World is a shamanistic reference. For a general overview of shamanism, see Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shamanism  

 

NOTES: Alphabet poems. I realized the potential of mining the alphabet as an indefatigable source in approximately 1974. I cannot claim any deep understanding of Kabbalah, but my readings about Jewish mysticism and fascination with the physical and metaphysical and psychological/spiritual depths and limits of letters set me to exploring them in poems and prose poems, setting my mind free in a meditative alphabetic mode, also at times relinquishing my will to the kind of automatic writing I understood figured into surrealist experimentation. I had dedicatedly studied/practiced Tai Chi Chuan and was sincerely exploring zazen and kinhin (sitting and walking meditation). I lived in a Tai Chi house w/teacher and students in Olympia, Washington; attended periodic weekend Zen meditation at San Francisco Zen Center; and read books on Taoism, Buddhism, and Judaism. 

Letters: I wished to arrive at unpredictable ends and to discover levels of my personal alphabet.  Letters, I discovered, are unfathomable. Every letter, not only the first letter of a word, is associatively connected to every word containing that letter; and our life experiences are connected to every word and letter, experience in-forming letters, letters reflecting experience. These frames of mind infused my approach to our musical moments.

 

My alphabet prose poems were originally written/calligraphed by hand for more direct sensual and personal connection with letters. I had studied calligraphy in a cursory way in 1971 and practiced it in my own quirky way with pen and then with Japanese brushes. I recall an inspiring workshop led by a serious scholar and devotee of the influential calligrapher Lloyd Reynolds. Young Tim Girvin (graphic artist, then a fellow student at Evergreen State College), assisted in that workshop and later calligraphically interpreted a small collection of Issa haiku my friend and fellow poet George Evans and I translated/reinterpreted from Japanese to English. George worked the literal translations, and we collaborated on creating readable contemporary American English versions. Tim sold the work to a private collector. I recently discovered a photocopy of Tim’s manuscript while searching for my little book of handwritten alphabet poems.

 

At points in the Nobodaddy recording, I break from literal words to play word sounds for their music and syllabic content, allowing my mouth and voice to explore consonants and vowels, pure vocalizations becoming another meaning-texture. This play between speaking and singing, entirely spontaneous at the time of recording, and without any influences in mind, is rooted in my feelings for Dada sound poetry (ie, Dada poet Kurt Schwitters) and my attraction to exploring how one might vocally sound concrete/visual poetry. I was also familiar with use of paralinguistic sound, repeated and phrased within spiritual traditions (ie. Native American Chant, as well as personal experience with Zen Buddhist chant). Less esoteric, every American kid knows how appealing nonsense words and sounds, full of innuendo, enhance blues, rock and roll, punk, new wave, hip hop, and other popular forms. In jazz, there is scat as a direct reference to such vocal play. In our recording, we create interplay of instrumental music with oral verbal music, rational and irrational narrative expression developing musical and verbal/vocal passages cohering in ways surprising us all when we listened back to our ninety-minute, continuous reel. In spontaneous moments of interplay, results can be impressionistic, at other times certainly expressionistic. When I would fracture lines and phrases for restatement, rearrangement, and new vocalization, the mode could be characterized as cubist. Without any of those artistic movements in mind, we reveled in our own mindful/mindless unpredictability.

 

The spirit of our purposeful openness to coincidence, delightfully synchronous events, was seriously playful, all chips in, and full of good humor. Why not go for broke, when you got nothing to lose?

 

NOTE: Most writings in this manuscript employ primarily lower case, and I often omit punctuation, emphasizing spacing and line breaks to maintain and play with clarity of thought and oral phrasing.  However, I used punctuation and capitalization where it best served the poem. Today I feel greater freedom with capitalization and punctuation, but my then self-imposed limitations helped me hone processes of that time.

 

YouTube—Voice

Kurt Schwitters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGAnINpvSeo

 

Native American Chant: https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search;_ylt=A86.J3c1lstVmg8ACgUnnIlQ;_ylc=X1MDMTM1MTE5NTY4NwRfcgMyBGZyA3locy1tb3ppbGxhLTAwMwRncHJpZANNVFNPazRWclJ6U0RaeVFuN3JqNWpBBG5fcnNsdAMwBG5fc3VnZwMyBG9yaWdpbgNzZWFyY2gueWFob28uY29tBHBvcwMxBHBxc3RyA3lvdXR1YmUgbmF0aXZlIGFtZXJpY2FuIGNoYW50BHBxc3RybAMyOQRxc3RybAMyOQRxdWVyeQN5b3V0dWJlIG5hdGl2ZSBhbWVyaWNhbiBjaGFudAR0X3N0bXADMTQzOTQwNTY0NQ--?p=youtube+native+american+chant&fr2=sa-gp-search&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-003) 

 

Scat Singing:    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scat_singing

 

https://search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?p=youtube+scat+singing&ei=UTF-8&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-003

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

EXTRAS—NOTE

The following two poems are pieces we regularly riffed on but did not include in the Whidbey Island session.

 

 “Self  if  Everyone.”    1, 7, 3

 

There  will  be  dead.  Your dead.    5, 6, 7, 8

 

    Voodoo  Please    2, 4

 

Weave  the  third  and  only  answer:  “You talk too much.”     8

 

           footnotes:

 

            1. Yours is the land in front.

            

    Behind me the place

            

    that is of me.

 

 

2. No  answer.

 

    I  will knock  again  and

 

    leave a note.

 

 

3. The  law  of  learning  events:

 

    Every  man  a  slave  in  that

 

    every  man  is  alone  outside

 

    himself.

 

 

4. Another  time  counters  all—

 

      Impossible   !

 

 

5. Suicide  is  as  the  eye/mind

 

    projector  sees  it.

 

 

6. It   is  impossible  to  determine

 

    by  examination  of  a  single  molecule

 

    whether  it  was  a  forward

 

    experiment.

 

 

7. There  were  too  many.

 

 

8. Silence         was  duly  recognized.

 

    Songs  and  schools of silence.

 

    Illustration:  not  only  were  there

 

    Trees  in  that  place/ trees

 

    oscillating  in  the  jump/  you  can’t

 

    see  or  hear.

 

               ⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿⦿

 

 

Untitled/5.28.1982   (handwritten—computer symbols used to simulate

                                                               doodles on the original handwritten copy)

 

  1. when it moves through air it doesn’t know it

 

  1. when it moves through water it doesn’t know it

 

  1. when it is exhausted by fire it doesn’t know it

 

  1. when it burrows through earth it doesn’t know it

 

  1. when compressed into ore it doesn’t know it

 

     

 

  1. residing in the heart of a mouse
  2. it will soon reside in the heart of a bird

 

                               

 

  1. residing in the heart of a bird
  2. it is destined for the heart of a cat

 

                                

 

  1. residing in the cat’s heart
  2. for the dog’s consuming heart

 

         

 

1. falling down it knows              2. rising up                  3. its appearance

     no other way                                  is its nature             is how we know

                                     the current

                                      

                                     it is the current

 

  

 

1. its voice is married to it           2. what spins from it

     it is voice                       is its home

 

3. leave-taking is its arrival            4. spinning its home it departs

 

                                     5. having nowhere to go

            it goes

        home

 

        ⦿