an unbelievable response

From The Totality of Causes: Li-Young Lee and Tina Chang in Conversation
To read the interview in its entirety click here.

Chang: In "Black Petal," you write of your brother's absence, "He died too young to learn his name. / Now he answers to Vacant Boat, / Burning Wing, My Black Petal." Do you think that absence has a presence, too?

Lee: I love that question. I've been thinking about something for a long time, and I keep noticing that most human speech—if not all human speech—is made with the outgoing breath. This is the strange thing about presence and absence. When we breath in, our bodies are filled with nutrients and nourishment. Our blood is filled with oxygen, our skin gets flush; our bones get harder—they get compacted. Our muscles get toned and we feel very present when we're breathing in. The problem is, that when we're breathing in, we can't speak. So presence and silence have something to do with each other.

The minute we start breathing out, we can talk; speech is made with the outgoing, exhaled breath. The problem that is poses, though, is that as we exhale, nutrients are leaving our bodies; our bones get softer, our muscles get flaccid, our skin starts to loosen. You could think of that as the dying breath. So as we breath out, we have less and less presence.

When we make verbal meaning, we use the dying breath. In fact, the more I say, the more my meaning is disclosed. Meaning grows in opposite ratio to presence or vitality. That's a weird thing. I don't know why God made us that way.

It's a kind of paradigm for life, right? As we die, the meaning of our life gets disclosed. Maybe the paradigm for living is encoded or embedded in speech itself, and every time we speak we're enacting on a small-scale, microcosmic level the bigger scale of our lives. So that the less vitality we have, the more the meaning of our lives get disclosed.

out under by Ian Ernzer

out under

crickets! don't you tell the truth?
whistling tunes
I despise your songs, they're the same every time
in a dry desert
paralleled by the indelible dead
things in the sky
down low is a high where some are scared
white sun on a black canvas stretched—
unfolded across the yellow sand and
tumbleweeds and needs are always moving
crickets keep singing

Been digging on Berryman

To hear John Berryman read this poem himself, you can follow this link:
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15206

Dream Song 1 by John Berryman

Huffy Henry hid the day,
unappeasable Henry sulked.
I see his point,--a trying to put things over.
It was the thought that they thought
they could do it made Henry wicked & away.
But he should have come out and talked.


All the world like a woolen lover
once did seem on Henry's side.
Then came a departure.
Thereafter nothing fell out as it might or ought.
I don't see how Henry, pried
open for all the world to see, survived.


What he has now to say is a long
wonder the world can bear & be.
Once in a sycamore I was glad
all at the top, and I sang.
Hard on the land wears the strong sea
and empty grows every bed.


From The Dream Songs by John Berryman, published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc. Copyright © 1959, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969 by John Berryman. Used with permission.

Wheat Fields Under Thunder

Wheat Fields Under Thunder by Ian Ernzer

I look to the horizon, where bulbous clouds radiate a soft glow onto everything around. The sky and clouds look like they’re within arms’ reach. I feel like I am in a gigantic terrarium, though I walk to the seemingly closer horizon, I continue to be equally as far from it. I don’t have a sense of time as it is impossible to tell; it’s looked like sunset for many days now—though I cannot see nor have I seen a sun in the sky. Ambient sounds echo and resonate through the air. I do not know where the sounds are coming from; I seem to be in an open field with big, round, soft, and smooth trees that shine like plastic. Only pastel colors exist here, where they subtly fuse and morph into each other if I stare long enough. I step onto the green grass, which is soft and feels like a foamy cushion; I want to walk forever on it. I feel like I am in a Wheat Field Under Thunderclouds. I can hear melodies blowing on my skin, traveled with the warm wind.

the leverage of everything and nothing

the leverage of everything and nothing by Ian Ernzer

it goes on and on and
its leverage—lifting and
unwinding and
showing us there and

there was the boat house:
just a surface reflection
on a lake at night
and this, is just a section
of your life—
reaffirmed
by your suspicions

it was too bad
we tried to listen
but couldn't hear what was there
we couldn't see what wasn't there
the sun sat on the other side of us
somewhere

Alpine Desert

Alpine desert by Ian Ernzer

An alpine mountain on a desert plateau continues spanning from here to there.
Underneath it all, a young seed planted, slowly grows.

Unsure of what will grow, but I can feel it.
No form and no shape.

Prediction is a game that passes time.
Will the seeds still grow once time passes or is it an infinite loop?

Master design: an ultimate plan of symbiotic bodies using bodies to pass life.
Conquer the season but that does not exist, so you continue.

A bumble-bee lands on the poppy that sprouts through a crack in the ice.
Then—and only then—will it make sense.

A walk in Atrani

A walk in Atrani by Ian Ernzer

stepped off the train, and saw you.
different smile, different place.
we walked along
the sun-washed white buildings, in the village.
I dragged my hand along a wall, slowly
listening to you
tell me how things have changed,
and how you've changed.
below, the water was aqua and tan from the sand.
I saw the rocks and reef—
extensions of the mountains' foundation,
we walked along.
leaving, we rode the train
through the steel-grey fishing village.
the sea was smooth.

a statistic

a statistic by Ian Ernzer

                                  …clack, clack
                                  and suds swallow my arms
              …crimson sidewalk
              scalding water to my elbows, scrubbing
  …white eyes
  brittle porcelain like these bones
       …staring into the future
       that ache, continuance of, doing good
              …red and blue flash
              in confined space

  …CLACK, CLACK
                  telephone rings, hello? yes, this is her
                                              …he is on the floor

                       and the phone drops into the sink
                       not yet seventeen

  …clack, clack
                      …snaps the clasps…
                                                   …on cherry cedar