Former Clevelander Russell Salamon, a magnificent poet and one of d.a. levy's friends, recently wrote and dispatched the below. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.
POET, A GROUP OF ONE, ADDRESSES AUDIENCE, A GROUP OF ZERO
Poet speaks poetry to beings who have become scientists of matter, whose imaginations have been wiped out by past trillions of years of non-stop war against Sources of Life. We used to call ourselves immortal souls, but that hurt a lot.
We gave up residence in immortal life and staked out plots of death on Fifth Avenue,Miami Beach, and in oil fields of democracy. But never mind, we are not allowed to talk about evil--it upsets the nice people doing the work of believing in the excuses and rightness of war.
It is not possible to read a soul without a vibrant imagination. The words imagination and you are synonyms--the same thing. Missing imaginations give us "Audience, a Group of Zero." Our culture is a group of Zeros fired up on drugs, feudalism and rubble of repeating histories. (New things are thought of, but not allowed to become real unless they are better lies about you, such as materialist "medicine.")
The living edge of creation entertains itself with sex, drugs, rock and roll, war, and medical death. These are fun because you do not need responsibility for a living mind, nor a conscience which would see you coming back to the planet you left ruined.
Contact with poetry is contact with imagination--with another living being. Something he says excites your lost life and failed purposes. An early condition of freedom flashes on, an early quality, something original resonates. "Oh, my god, he is talking about me when I was a free being, when I had freedom of choice and freedom of universes. Those were my earliest friends!"
POET, A GROUP OF ONE, ADDRESSES AUDIENCE, A GROUP OF ZERO
Poet speaks poetry to beings who have become scientists of matter, whose imaginations have been wiped out by past trillions of years of non-stop war against Sources of Life. We used to call ourselves immortal souls, but that hurt a lot.
We gave up residence in immortal life and staked out plots of death on Fifth Avenue,Miami Beach, and in oil fields of democracy. But never mind, we are not allowed to talk about evil--it upsets the nice people doing the work of believing in the excuses and rightness of war.
It is not possible to read a soul without a vibrant imagination. The words imagination and you are synonyms--the same thing. Missing imaginations give us "Audience, a Group of Zero." Our culture is a group of Zeros fired up on drugs, feudalism and rubble of repeating histories. (New things are thought of, but not allowed to become real unless they are better lies about you, such as materialist "medicine.")
The living edge of creation entertains itself with sex, drugs, rock and roll, war, and medical death. These are fun because you do not need responsibility for a living mind, nor a conscience which would see you coming back to the planet you left ruined.
Contact with poetry is contact with imagination--with another living being. Something he says excites your lost life and failed purposes. An early condition of freedom flashes on, an early quality, something original resonates. "Oh, my god, he is talking about me when I was a free being, when I had freedom of choice and freedom of universes. Those were my earliest friends!"
1 comment:
Hear! Hear!
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