Prevention on the earthly level, on the horizontal plane, is dealing with symptoms. It’s not dealing with the source of pathology. The source of our pathology is mind. That is earlier than the body. So, we need to ask ourselves, how does the mind work?

If I drive a car and I’m teaching my son to drive, and I say to my son, “You keep your eye on that guardrail because I don’t want you to hit it,” what do you think would happen?

He would hit the guard rail. We know when we’re driving we go where we look. This is the way the mind works. That’s why they is repeat behavior in abusive relationships…

If we’re looking at this, we’re recording it, recycling it. All we see are versions of the past. What we can look at, where we can drive to, to keep from hitting guard rail. War, bang, disease, bang, we keep hitting the guard rail.

…The artist is looking towards something else. Art is totally ideal. Otherwise it has no function. Then we are no longer legislators of the world…If you want to call it ideal, call it ideal. I would like to think of it as the primary reality. We’ve mistaken this [cycles of violence] for primary reality.

“Look at this” and after years of this it dawned on me that I can’t be looking at this because the more I look at it, the more I repeat it. If a future is possible for my kids, I can’t keep looking at this.”

Li-Young Lee, p. 92-94 of Breaking the Alabaster Jar

p. 66 of Li-Lin Lee, Feb 96
Li-Lin Lee: In poetry, there’s a much higher level of communication. In painting, it’s the lowest level. It’s like when you see a rock cliff. You’re astounded by it — the formations on this rock. That’s a very low level of communication. You see it and it affects you.
Cooper: But that’s instant communication.

p. 76 Li-Young Lee to Jansen, April 96, “That’s my model all the time, of the within that is within the within. So the poem is an infinity-inward flowering.”

p77 Li-Young Lee to Jansen, April 96 “We should write out of grief but not of grievance. Grief is rich, ecstatic. But grievance is not — it’s complaint, it’s whining. ”

p. 87 LYL “this body itself is already in the past. The body itself is a late report of an earlier report. Everything that occurred here, everything that is occurring here is the late report of an earlier event.”

p 89 LYL: This chair is a coarse form of vibration; my voice is a higher form of vibration. Silent thought is vibration…the whole universe is humming, is vibrating. It’s theat hum I want to hear. That’s the subject of my poems.[…]p. 91 “It [language poetry] looks like a literary activity. I’m trying not to write. The fact that I have to write is unfortunate. I’m just trying to hear something, so there’s a difference.”

(btw, Happy National Punctuation day!)

my plant song man

frog thumb prophet I am grateful.
if it were not for your level-eye,
shrugged shoulders of action,
I would be surrounded by the pale
stalks of my transgressions.

you don’t get taken in by my verbiage of,
the houseplants are stable, ie:
in a state where they do not wilt or rot,
beyond need for misting or watering,
a dusting if you must be particular
about appearances.

you do not chastise but gaze with slight
private smiled head-shake of kindness,
wordlessly replenish the clay
with hungry roots you pay for
out of pocket, energy, time

each of your visits is rain

–

Part of Ringing of the Bards XIV

–

airing
laundry, dirty by default,
yes, rub it in

–
Poet comic