Haiku

A last leaf falls
into still water, shakes
reflected mountains.


The first phrase of this one feels a little too much like a haiku, if you know what I mean. But I still like the image. May need to let it sit for awhile.

# posted by Daniel at 8:54 PM.

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Chapbook update

Went down to the printer today to proof the first copy of the chapbook. It looks quite nice. Despite being less than thrilled with the quality of service at Island Blue Printing I'm very happy with the book. If all goes as planned we should have the printed books by the weekend. Everyone cross your fingers...

(p.s. If you want to pre-order a copy and haven't yet you can go to rathersmallpress.blogspot.com and do so.)

# posted by Daniel at 8:18 PM.

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Haiku

These mountains falling
         into sky, indistinct and
                  gray like distant rain.


I'm not entirely sure how to explain my recent interest in haiku. I wrote quite a bit of it after graduating high school but hadn't revisited the form in six or seven years. The best theory going is that I'm cleansing my system after all the drama of editing and revising the chapbook (which we took to the printer today! hooray!). The poems in the book are pretty idea-heavy, after which the simplicity of the haiku form feels like an absolute relief. I know virtually nothing about it beyond the syllable count and some vague notion of the underlying spiritual theory. So I don't know what's good and bad. Beginner's mind, beginner's mind...

# posted by Daniel at 5:21 PM.

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Haiku

      My love goes walking,
comes home breathless, full of names
      for birds and flowers.

# posted by Daniel at 4:21 PM.

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Haiku

      The flowers lasted
weeks past what we thought they would
      and died this morning.

# posted by Daniel at 2:11 PM.

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Fun with Google

Following in the footsteps of Matthew over at Theoloblog.

"Daniel Priest"

Daniel Priest is also a documentary film maker in Florida. The only film I uncovered was 24/7. Interestingly enough, I got an email from this DP a few weeks ago after he googled his name and came across me. Funny stuff.

Daniel Priest also did mixing and audio production on Nazareth's Homecoming: Greatest Hits Live in Glasgow. I suspect this is the same DP responsible for the soundtrack to the super short film "The Karmic Wheel of Doo Doo", which you should take five minutes to watch.

Daniel Priest is a doctor in rural Papua New Guinea.

Daniel Priest operated a carding factory in northern Wisconsin during the 1840's.


"Punch Like a Poet"

PLAP is listed on Blogshares and is currently valued at ~$4500. I don't know what this means. But $4500 is always cool.

I'm also linked by these blogs which I haven't yet linked:
clabs.org/blogki
Something Katy

# posted by Daniel at 12:00 PM.

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New Blogs

Fanny, whose Weeds of Contemplation have been overrun by weeds of indifference during the past year (pretty much since I showed up in Canada, actually) has started a new blog, Mockingbird Knits, dedicated to her latest obsession. She's got a couple of posts up already, both of which promise good things to come.

Matthew is initiating a new arts journal in his capacity as Director of Arts and Worship at Saanichton Bible Fellowship. Go submit to Common Saints.

As alluded to in the last post, Rather Small Press is a small chapbook-oriented press that Fanny and I have undertaken to run. Dead Man is the first of hopefully many. No plans yet to actively solicit additional manuscripts. We would, however, be interested and willing to work with poets who already have a strong vision for their book and mature, well developed poems.

# posted by Daniel at 11:39 AM.

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Pre-order Dead Man

My new chapbook Dead Man is available for pre-order over at Rather Small Press, the imprinture under which we're publishing. Expect delivery around the first of April, which also happens to be the date of the launch party here in Victoria at Solstice Cafe. More information is posted over at RSP. Check it out.

Also, as there have been questions, the term "chapbook" just refers to a short book of not much more than 20-25 pages, generally poetry, printed in short runs. I have no idea where the word comes from.

# posted by Daniel at 11:18 AM.

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Jack Gilbert

Roger posted over at Pobiz that Jack Gilbert's collection Refusing Heaven has won the National Critics' Circle Award. While I haven't read it, his earlier collection The Great Fires was a wedding present and has been much enjoyed by Fanny and me for several months now. I'm typing out a few of my favorites here; you can find some more over at Plagiarist. I especially recommend "The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart."



1953

All night in the Iowa cafe. Friday night
and the farm boys with their pay.
Fine bodies and clean faces. All of them
proud to be drunk. No meanness,
just energy. At the next table, they talked
cars for hours, friends coming and going,
hollering over. The one with the heavy face
and pale hair kept talking about the Chevy
he had years ago and how it could
take everything in second.
Moaning that he never should have sold it.
Didn't he show old Hank? Bet your ass!
The Fourth of July when Shelvadeen
got too much patriotism and beer
and gave some to everybody
down by the river. Hank so mad because
I left him like he was standing still.
Best car that ever was, and never should have
let it go. Tears falling on his eggs.



A Stubborn Ode

All of it. The sane woman under the bed with the rat
that is licking off the peanut butter she puts on her
front teeth for him. The beggars of Calcutta blinding
their children while somewhere people are rich
and eating with famous friends and having running water
in their fine houses. Michiko is buried in Kamakura.
The tired farmers thresh barley all day under the feet
of donkeys amid the merciless power of the sun.
The beautiful women grow old, our hearts moderate.
All of us wane, knowing things could have been different.
When Gordon was released from the madhouse, he could
not find Hayden to say goodbye. As he left past
Hall Eight, he saw the face in a basement window,
tears running down the cheeks. And I say, nevertheless.



Prospero Dreams of of Arnault Daniel Inventing Love in the Twelfth Century

Let's get hold of one of those deer
that live way up there in the mountains.
Lure it down with flutes, or lasso it
from helicopters, or just take it out
with a .30-30. Anyhow, we get one.
Then we reach up inside its ass and maybe
find us a little gland or something
that might make a hell of a perfume.
It's worth a try. You never know.



Going Wrong

The fish are dreadful. They are brought up
the mountain in the dawn most days, beautiful
and alien and cold from night under the sea,
the grand rooms fading from their flat eyes.
Soft machinery of the dark, the man thinks,
washing them. "What can you know of my machinery!"
demands the Lord. Sure, the man says quietly
and cuts into them, laying back the dozen struts,
getting to the muck of something terrible.
The Lord insists: "You are the one who chooses
to live this way. I build cities where things
are human. I make Tuscany and you go to live
with rock and silence." The man washes away
the blood and arranges the fish on a big plate.
Starts the onions in the hot olive oil and puts
in peppers. "You have lived all year without women."
He takes out everything and puts in the fish.
"No one knows where you are. People forget you.
You are vain and stubborn." The man slices
tomatoes and lemons. Takes out the fish
and scrambles eggs. I am not stubborn, he thinks,
laying all of it on the table in the courtyard
full of early sun, shadows of swallows flying
on the food. Not stubborn, just greedy.



The Lord Sits With Me Out In Front

The Lord sits with me out in front watching
a sweet darkness begin in the fields.
We try to decide whether I am lonely.
I tell about waking at four a.m. and thinking
of what the man did to the daughter of Louise.
And there being no moon when I went outside.
He says maybe I am getting old.
That being poor is taking too much out of me.
I say I am fine. He asks for the Brahms.
We watch the sea fade. The tape finishes again
and we sit on. Unable to find words.

# posted by Daniel at 6:59 PM.

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In lieu of class

My bioethics professor didn't show this morning, so I'm jotting a quick update instead of scribbling notes about ethical issues pertaining to the allocation of scarce health care resources. It's an interesting class, especially for the contrast between the Canadian system where health care is treated as a right versus the US, where it's treated as a commodity. We'll see what Stephen Harper has to say about all this.

An aside for Canadian readers: my professor makes an interesting point about the proposed two-tier health care system. The problem in the public system is a shortage of personnel. Therefore, allowing a parallel private HC system will not alleviate the pressure on the public system. It will instead exacerbate it, because it will draw off already limited doctors and nurses.

Change of subject. Victorians, mark your calanders and spread the word about a chapbook launch party at Solstice Cafe the night of Saturday, April 1st. I'll be reading from my new collection Dead Man, Fanny will read some of the poems she's been working on for the last little bit, and Matthew Davidson will (I think) be playing songs on his guitar. Dead Man will be available for purchase. I hope to have a Paypal site up in the next week so those of you in Texas and other places that aren't the greater Victoria area can order a copy.

# posted by Daniel at 9:53 AM.

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Poem

Sorry it's been so long without a post. I've been working on the chapbook instead, which is all but finished at this point. More information on that later. Here's a newly minted poem for you (the first stirrings of which occurred a mere hour and a half ago).


ANATOMY OF LANDSCAPE

The rough snowdusted shoulders
of mountains. Jagged teeth, we say.
The Olympic range stretched across
the south, knobby as a spine. Round hills
settled on the land like breasts,
or like a forehead, furrowed. Valleys
green, taut as a belly. Fingers of land
holding hands with the ocean.
Prairie flat as a sleeping man's back.
A river in Texas named for arms.
The Mississippi flexing like a leg,
glinting white under moonlight.
Martian craters shaped like faces.
Footprints of lakes trailing through
northern Manitoba. Ribs of a sea cliff
on the Oregon coast. Forests thick
as hair. Dirt the color of blood.
Banks of a creek. Pair of lips.
A clear tongue between them, laughing.

# posted by Daniel at 3:09 PM.

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