Skip to main content

CLOUD

A CHILD MYSELF CAKED WITH BLACK MUD THE SALT SUCKED FROM MY SLEEVE A CLOUD OF BLACK FEATHERS A WHITE MARE THAT COULD

“Now I remember the Canary Islands—
The tide falling in from every direction,
I remember hiding among the adolescent corn, a child myself.
Caked with black mud, the salt sucked from my sleeve,
A cloud of black feathers; a white mare that could race in your hand.”

Doller, Ben. “The Canary Islands.” Radio, Radio: Poems. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2001. p.14.

Catalog Record

SLIME SECRETED OR THROWN OUT AS A GLOWING CLOUD ABOUT THE ANIMAL THE SQUID HETEROTEUTHIS PRODUCES THIS SECRETION IN A

“In many of the luminescent organisms the light results from luminous slime secreted over parts of the body or thrown out as a glowing cloud about the animal, as in the case of the squid
Heteroteuthis, which produces this secretion in a gland corresponding to the ink sac of better known squids.”

Sverdrup, H. U., Martin W. Johnson, and Richard Howell Fleming. The Oceans: Their Physics, Chemistry, and General Biology. New York: Prentice-Hall, 1942. p. 834.

Catalog Record

University of California Press E-Books

SLOWLY CHANGING NOT STARS NOT ROCKS BY THE MIDNIGHT BREEZES STREWN CLOUD TATTERS LAVENDER ARCTIC LIGHT ON SEDATE WILD

“Green mountain walls in blowing cloud
white dots on far slopes, constellations,
slowly changing, not stars, not rocks
‘by the midnight breezes strewn’
cloud tatters, lavender arctic light
on sedate wild sheep grazing
tundra greens, held in the web of clan
and kin by bleats and smells to the slow
rotation of their Order living
half in the sky—damp wind up from the
whole North Slope and a taste of the icepack,
the primus roaring now,
here, have some tea.”

Snyder, Gary. The Practice of the Wild. San Francisco: North Point Press, 1990. p. 108. Dogen. Moon in a Dewdrop: Writings of Zen Master Dogen. Tanahashi, Kazuaki (trans.).San Francisco: North Point, 1985.

Catalog Record

BeWild ReWild

EVENING TWILIGHT IN THE HOUSE MADE OF DARK CLOUD IN THE HOUSE MADE OF RAIN MUST OF POLLEN OF GRASSHOPPERS WHERE THE

“In the house made of evening twilight
In the house made of dark cloud
In the house made of rain & mist, of pollen, of
grasshoppers
Where the dark mist curtains the doorway
The path to which is on the rainbow
Where the zigzag lightning stands high on top
Where the he-rain stands high on top”

Rothenberg, Jerome. Technicians of the Sacred a Range of Poetries from Africa, America, Asia, Europe, and Oceania. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1969. p. 79. from The Night Chant (after Bitahatini) (Navaho Indian) Washington Matthews, The Night Chant, a Navaho Ceremony (Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History [New York, 1902], pp. 143-5.

Catalog Record

Internet Archive

CLOUDS VEGETATE IN THE EAST THEY ARE SCATTERED FLOWERS UNFOLD WHITE CLOUD UNFOLDS MISTLETOE BRANCHES OOZE LIGHTNING

“In the West the clouds vegetate
in the East they are scattered
flowers unfold
white cloud unfolds
mistletoe branches ooze
lightning falls on mistletoe branches
ooze ibaratree tuffed
killed
weeping
paralyzed.”

Rothenberg, Jerome. “Snake Chant / Storm Chant.” Technicians of the Sacred a Range of Poetries from Africa, America, Asia, Europe, and Oceania. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1969. p. 75. Miriam Koshland (tr.,) “Six Chants from the Congo,” Black Orpheus: A Journal of African & Afro-American Literature, No. 2 (January 1958), pp. 19-21. Africa: Kijoku

Catalog Record

Internet Archive

FLASH OF LIGHTNING PASSES BETWEEN TWO TERMS A CLOUD AND THE EARTH NO UNIT OF NATURAL PROCESS CAN BE LESS THAN THIS ALL

“The type of sentence in nature is a flash of lightning. It passes between two terms, a cloud and the earth. No unit of natural process can be less than this. All natural processes are, in their units, as much as this.”

Fenollosa, Ernest. From The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry. In Symposium of the Whole: A Range of Discourse toward an Ethnopoetics, edited by Jerome and Diane Rothenberg, 23. Berkeley; Los Angeles; London: University of California Press, 1983.

Catalog Record

University of California Press

ALL THE LEAVES DRIPPING AND THE ROCKS RUNNING WITH WATER THE SKY IS CLOUD ON CLOUD THE BRIEF SUN BARELY SHINES THE GROUND

“A great wind is blowing,
heavy rain—
thick darkness;
the sailors running here and there,
shouting at one another
to pull at this and at that rope,
and the waves pouring over the ship;
landing in the rain—
the cold rain
falling steadily;
the ground wet,
all the leaves dripping,
and the rocks running with water;
the sky is cloud on cloud
in which the brief sun barely shines,
the ground snow on snow,
the cold air
wind and blast;
we have followed our God
into this wilderness
of trees heavy with snow,
rocks seamed with ice,
that in the freezing blasts
the remnant of this remnant
kindle so bright, so lasting a fire
on this continent,
prisoners of ice and darkness everywhere
will turn and come to it
to warm their hands and hearts.”

Reznikoff, Charles, edited by Seamus Cooney. “New Nation.” The Poems of Charles Reznikoff 1918-1975. Boston: David R. Godine, 2005. p. 166.

Catalog Record

WorldCat

SLEEP SO ANTERIOR LETTERS VAUNTING WIND PULLS CLOUD COVER AS LIGHT SPOKE A FUTURE BEHIND THE SOUND MEANING NO HOMAGE

“as if
already said
spoken shadow
placed on itself
disappears or still
there listening
to finally see the thing
moving
toned away
to the person
could be
with words

it means the sky
shifts to take on
what the ear
says is system
sleep so anterior
letters vaunting
wind pulls cloud
cover as light
spoke a future
behind the sound
meaning no homage
itself or elsewhere
sits
as stated
grammar from the view
and sense on its own side
single crowding
visibility
gone on ahead”

Perelman, Bob. “Outlines.” Primer. Oakland, CA: This Press, 1981. p. 37.

Catalog Record

Internet Archive

REICHSANSTALT'S LAMPLIGHT EXPLODING-STARLIGHT SATURN LIGHT EARTHLIGHT ACTINISM CLOUD LIGHT COMA-CLUSTER LIGHT ALCOHOL LAMPLIGHT

"cold light
moonlight
naphtha-lamp light
noontide light
luminiferousness
almandite light
enameling-lamp light
a nimbus
meteor light
Jack-o'-lantern light
water lights
jack-light light refracted light
altar light
Corona-cluster light
magic lantern light
ice-sky light
clear grey light iridescence
natural light
infra-red light
Reichsanstalt's lamplight
exploding-starlight
Saturn light
Earthlight
actinism
sodium-vapor lamplight
cloud light
coma-cluster light
alcohol lamplight
luster
light of day &/or
lamplight."

Low, Jackson Mac. “5th Light Poem and 2nd Piece for George Brecht to Perform tho Others May Also Unless He Doesn’t Want Them To—13 June 1962.” 22 Light Poems. Los Angeles: Black Sparrow Press, 1968. p. 17.

Catalog Record

thing.net

ORIGINALLY SPINNING MUCH FASTER WITH THE DUST CLOUD REVOLVING AROUND THE SUN GOING MORE SLOWLY BY SOME MECHANISM AND

“It seems possible that the protosun was originally spinning much faster, with the dust cloud revolving around the sun going correspondingly more slowly. By some mechanism (and detailed suggestions have been made as to how it might have happened) spin was transferred from the sun to the dust cloud, thus slowing the former and speeding up the latter.”

Crick, Francis. Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature. New York: Touchstone, 1982. p. 100.

Catalog Record

EARLIER SUPERNOVA SEEN BY CHINESE ASTRONOMERS IN 1054 THIS GREAT CLOUD OF LUMINOUS GAS WE CALL THE CRAB NEBULA IS

“We can still observe the remnants of an earlier supernova seen by Chinese astronomers in 1054. This great cloud of luminous gas, which we call the Crab Nebula, is still expanding rapidly, and we can even see the remnant of the star, now a pulsar (a rotating neutron star), at its center.”

Crick, Francis. Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature. New York: Touchstone, 1982. p. 33.

Catalog Record

BLACK METAL FENCE OLD SKY FRESHENED WITH CLOUD BULK SLIDES OVER FRAME OF WINDOW THE SHADINGS OF SOFTENED GREYS

“ *
Trees stripped, rather shed
of leaves, the black solid trunks up
to fibrous mesh of smaller
branches, it is weather’s window,
weather’s particular echo, here
as if this place had been once,
now vacant, a door that had had
hinges swung in air’s peculiar
emptiness, greyed, slumped elsewhere,
asphalt blank of sidewalks, line of
linearly absolute black metal fence.

*

Old sky freshened with cloud bulk   
slides over frame of window the   
shadings of softened greys a light   
of air up out of this dense high   
structured enclosure of buildings   
top or pushed up flat of bricked roof   
frame I love I love the safety of   
small world this door frame back   
of me the panes of simple glass yet   
airy up sweep of birch trees sit in   
flat below all designation declaration   
here as clouds move so simply away.”

Creeley, Robert. “Helsinki Window.” Selected Poems of Robert Creeley. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1991. p. 346.

Catalog Record