The Lanterns Along the Wall by John Wieners


  Along the way to becoming an artist are many pitfalls. For those who do not write do not know what true magic is.

  Many today become artists by adopting their looks, and gear, or else adhering around or to those who do practice this satisfaction. I cannot imagine a single day, when I have not spent dreaming or conjuring certain habits of the poet. Fortunate the few who are forced into making things surrounding the poets come true. Even though at one time, I believed there would be no reward, for poetic industry and still do, there is immediate response. Things change in proximate location to poetry. There seems to be an aura, or softness as of a romantic glow, or of an enchantment, definitely, as if going back to a children's story, when an adult, or contemplating children. Women possess this nature, when surrounded by their own things, feelings, as a man does, who is within the spell of understanding what is happening to him; they grow wider, broader, and even are able to support profession and others along with it. Trees are stripped, the sky deepens.

  Even oceans, strange from eternity, become more homely with a lovely person, at that moment, within their shore's tides. But does the land belong to the ocean, or the surf? Sunlight, that supports us, contains like proposition.

  One must not give up. It could be dangerous and facing a hostile world, to accept in failure.

  There is no age for a poet, that he exists outside of time, and is its watchdog. There is love for the strange, the morbid and possessed. We do not give enough joy in our work. Even the act of doing it savors well for the god, but within us and not still to it, must be realized, and attended to as one does infest an absent mind. There is every love for each sensory apparatus, for each one's being. Not as homeless skeletons do await the hospitalized release. There is some love for every loving poet. No man dies loveless.

  There are words and they govern. I wrote go on, as infinite aspersions toward the absolute, desired kiss. And I found out, while writing this, even at the risk of putting all my eggs in one basket, that each man does have his own language, particular to himself. It is us, who put the details of morbidness, or perversion upon it.

  I can only say real happiness yields from the world of poems And its practitioners are secret, sacred vessels to an ancient divinity.

 And referring back earlier, only I can read my own writing. In the way, it exists in that helio-centric condition around the cosmic orbit.

Poetry exists mainly because of those who practice it. Too often we are reminded that poets are only vehicles for this instrument. It does not matter that poets create the art, in dank rooms, or the poet retreats into shadowy places, to call forth the spirits that minister his rhythm or meter. Bearing the repetition, the spirit or substance remains the same.

  Unconsciously, or self unknowing, not to confuse the two, preferring the latter, we are instruments for another order, as say, for example, we allow, rather that is to say, let the ancient, over-presuming over trees be our guide. Poets are under magical orders.

  They can illumine besides themselves and others, in the moment. Creating infinite allure towards those beings and things they most admire.

  The magical descent of sunlight is not more holy than the apparent interruption, though and or despite the need for ever-present human beings to present desires. For who can say what I can say? What more is there to add, except I am very glad to have the backlog or pillow of a previous-achieved poetry, or even poetry being cogitated now, as a form wherein or by I may attain some soft definition of myself.

  According to others, as well as to myself, alone. If it's melodious, one will accept it. The continuous provision of goods and food, design, order and loving habits awaits one. I owe poetry for itl it is a pleasure, yes and on the point of contradiction, a reward to work for them, in the ground-level area of good verse. An exciting age perpetuates quality and harmony.

 There is a pause in our lives, and to call it loneliness or possession with the minority points of others is no retreat, only reflection.
What comes then to fill the emptiness, or solitariness
Eventually an abundance of beauty and tranquillity. 
Within generalized states, as just listed, lies the true presence of what is termed 'white magic.' There are no other forms as far as ultimately I am concerned. No drunkenness can equal purity. Or, other forms, simple address to the prime force of love. Love,  not in the sense of kindness or patience, but sometimes trespassed sensual energy.

All these pretensions about the literary life; do they exist, can they be true, by candleight, or in the small ballroom, under the moon, creeping down between apartment buildings. Yes, poetry is magic, is a pool by which we bathe ourselves, aurally, orally; and what the sound is much closer than one would suspect.
MUTHOS-LOGOS. "The what is said of what is said."
For what we dream does not exists except in our mind.
Or does it? The subterranean rises and creates our reality. May
my dreams come true and yours.

  The mind-expanding experiences seem to cognate each excitement, that is ours. Not illogically. I have received enough distinction on each one of them, to collate a man' subconscious as equal to the fact, itself. PROPRIO-CEPTION.

  Intermittently I lose my family, within my own seld. Too little time and too much rest require for reparation of one's energies. I would rather replace them with the peers of my own craft. Any contact with them seems raging and unstable. At other times they are straight and we are on an even keel. It's some interior nature of ours, the whole familial relationship, that determines its beings. I would much rather be with someone else, yourselves for instance.
Written for  Robert Creeley's class of
   August 17/72   -     -