Another Quick Update: A Substitution of Centers

So, Conversely and I have decided that we are returning, so to speak, to the Paterson Project: instead of just fleshing out the musical aspect of the original project, we will be continuing that work (which is pretty arduous, for a variety or reasons, not the least of these being that neither Conversely nor I are particularly talented musicians) AND we will be beginning a poetic dissection and flowery-offshoot-eruption-(can i say eruption?)-re-creation of Paterson: Book II, Ch. 1. We are working on titles for this section now, and, man, we are excited. First of all, the poetic rules are going to change a bit, as the liberty (thank you, George Rogers Clark) to expand from the geographical locus of Paterson, N.J. has been discussed between the two of us and we agree that, NO!, these poems should happen, as much as a poem happens, wherever and whenever we think appropriate. This means little to you, but it is a great and exciting bit of news to us. More important to you is this: similar rules of media and form are also being relaxed, so don't be surprised if songs come before poems or pictures come before songs or whatever whatever whatever. It's all fun times, now.

So, you can probably expect a new list of prospective titles in the next week or so. Until then, I leave you with Conversely's favorite so far:

Poem 5; or, "How Do I Love You? These!"

Paterson: Book Four, Chapter III, p. 187

A song is now available for this poem on the Internet Archive!

The Incomplete Seduction of a Scholar and Clerk; or, "Here's My Key, Go Up and Help Yourself."

I.
Thank Jesus you're sleeping
at last in the dark.
I know it from the sigh that
escapes-
in each odd breath,

While too quickly I move
from the still-made covers,
and do not dress as I
switch on
the lamp near the wall.

In -light- the room's read:
books in each corner,
on each table and each
chair, all
bound thick in cold leather.

II.
And in light, you will open
as blank pages do open,
and the white of your back
will part and then fold -
along the ridge of your spine
still shadowed in night:
two thin pages facing
two thin pages facing

---

III.
My finger is tracing
the lines of your shoulder,
reading your skin
as it
might letters in Braille;

Moving above the
slight rise of your lungs
across ribs even-spaced,
stan-
zas unspoken, I--

Break the rough still-
ness of night in the room
with my own sound of
air mov-
ing thin from my lips-

And I will not tell you
Not ever tell you
Not ever tell you
it was not with the [sound of trumpets],

but a whimper.

KMC 9-27-06

Paterson: Book Four, Chapter III, p. 186-7

A song is now available for this poem on the Internet Archive!

The Murder of the Dutchman Jonafen Haring

Something's in
with the horses.
I hear it,
rising up
from dawn.

You will look
As you always look.

The sound of you
on cold steps
down and across
and so briefly in snow;
crunch, I listen
I listen
for you.

And then the
beating of hooves
the beating
of hooves
the beat-
ing of
hooves
on stone.
-------
Through the silence
of strangers
and torches
(four tories,
their judas)

past the entry
of my house
to horses
in darkness
away;

through waiting
on footsteps
in the hall,

a cold thought
will penetrate:

there is no virgin
beginning.

KMC 9-22-06