from To the Cold Heart
Clark Coolidge is unquestionably among the finest and most legendary American poets of our time. Initially (and still) a jazz drummer, he has been writing poetry of relentless search and experimentation since the 1960s, a poetry that has been cutting edge both sonically and visually: his earlier work took a radical approach to the concrete poem, the shape of the text on the page, while his later work seems to be more informed by the practice of improvisation – in the words of Eliot Weinberger: “an inexhaustible writer capable of taking a subject, any subject, and improvising endless bebop glissandos around it.” The concerns of shape and sound organically merge with the vast field of his attentions, maybe most importantly his training as a geologist – Stone, thus, being the fundamental metaphor for the concrete thingness of the poetic text. Jack Kerouac being a guiding spirit of sorts, improvised composition and performance are other major parts of the work. From an early statement of his own:
“As Stein has most clearly & accurately indicated, Words have a universe of qualities other than those of descriptive relation: Hardness, Density, Sound-Shape, Vector-Force, & Degrees of Transparency / Opacity. I am attempting to peer through the lines into this possible WordArt Landscape, work within it & return with Wordscapes, WordObjects to light & refresh the mind so currently overloaded with centuries of medial Language-Tape.”
His recently published To the Cold Heart, from which we have selected the following poems, is not in itself a recent composition but dates back to 1990. In a way it is informed by the years the poet spent in the Berkshires. On the other hand, it is “a translation in the loosest sense” of the classic Cold Mountain poems by the Tang dynasty madcap poet-hermit Hanshan. In that sense, it is an improvisation informed by an intense poetic dialogue, a procedure typical to Coolidge. It also struck us as a fascinating middle path between concise concreteness and relentless improvising – both central features of his work. And there are stones aplenty!
Likeable the path that turns to me
but the bucket has dropped, no tracks
gulfs lap each other, rises pile
no one has knowledge
the damp things on all planes
air through trunks in press
if I threaten to slip I ask
what’s never quite here yet keeps
coming back
*
I’ve kept no track of the Olympian
disc
far from March and its horses
styles that wait
do you object?
I’d rather be bothered by stars
than same clouds
that hold to a house that isn’t
*
Use the amethyst vizor for the veiled towns
a moment of time for the once formed
now entering your own hill
you will not allow the center
one to be dreaded
*
The same as a repeat the moment’s now
the tone to not include enough mesh
for a match, as it goes and you play with it
go on, go by, reach the hand
where the lands meet a bread’s first crusts
I would miss the mirror with my gold
Philip Guston, Untitled, ca. 1950.
*
Inside the pearl of jade swings a perfect mind
does it stray, does it hie from apex?
the shades all show me where to store my shoes
*
Singing stone, the ankle moss
the average ridge
the must of a short hand
but the candy will roll off the ledge
the answer poison its followers
*
Don’t go on, stone
permission in its rank stalls
I gather in sheafs the smells
the all-of-mind waffling tunes
and the soil comes up thin
the buried shine
the caving walls
*
Repeat after monk, berate
the cape dropped from peak after march
all in numbers of, stallions fall
I can’t call up
from the pear board in dream
turned out new what I called
whatever, no matter
*
I’d make myself amazed
by yellow any yellow
that tastes
*
The cigarettes are emptied by dawn
would roll a rope up if I were short
it’s a laugh, and a half
the sense to be learned additional
getting off the loafs and running
rocks through the streams
*
Could I only sing to you
but later, and yet
falling heads precede
drained dreams
Philip Guston, Celebration, 1961.
*
I don’t know what you intend to
but me
there is a whistling past
the page I just left
*
Here the darkness is green
the savage are ready
the roads lead till
and never is in time
but never is time enough
*
I then raced out and found the way
was light, apology for the space accompanying
if there is no one, then no one
no place from which
but still one
goes it
*
Went back naming everything in its trill
avoids the bulk of things after
years in a handful, the nights
the days the nights
tend to tremble in weather
whichever wind its weights
*
In the center of the tin
duck
makes off with
my starry avenue
*
The body of the one
drops apart
other receivers dial blank
it’s on the one hand
this cut of the slowing moon
go wild with roses
*
House when
and then gate when
the dogs stop
in tune and arrive
I sell the shucks
around me, mend the wine
follow the furling of
entrance
*
Seen in the street styles
gone rabbits of the haunt
stone of their shoes
I made a heart of
splayed among the savage
tapered flaunts of lone
slim bruise
*
If the name is known the freight
will depart along with
we stroll and never budge a nerve
the hand shoved through the hand and
turned away
*
Fluid in a hollow handle
we make flee, green brush
mosquito staves, youths
array bronze, bold and wheeze
in an honest stroke there
depend electrical news
*
Put out upon a box to the sea
an open dive made to warning
labyrinthine batch and hole
cover we put back on, shirtless
and framing which
the glad ones meet hands
washing aloud without a wish
William Tremble, Berkshire County Barn in Winter.
*
What if I said
I will never
talk to stone
brush grown to a golden
edge needs sing all night
who care?
an Alladin to manage
from his sill a lamp
of string
*
Gold from old once spotted
returns
not
I haven’t got you
air enough to get away
beyond
make me, the temple of thing
says, of stone
*
Gnaw on my return, prolong dog
shooed out on husks and chrome
belly standard, where’s our meeting
how many torn the dale
in which the lake, the toe, my word
final
the going haunted of furled in shade
*
Deep in the sum up of red animals
soaped from sun loose as cherry backing
round things stir the churl in his out chair
porch bracken wind tin on formish loan
cheers are made
to be heard from a reach height
the novel blinks at its ends in red
its tassles write in mine
*
The lantern burns twigs to its integers
all up, not light
its matter
from the bottom glass
raising of this we all swing
till no cap
and night
*
Get it, then blank it
hide it, then plunk the sly
it’s wisteria pin fool that laughter
pocket biter and the fall from witness
stub it then stand
to the port and glare
*
A dizziness of granites clogs your dull hastes
brown as a highway marker, as shouted in trim
the dogs will bury your skull though task it be
and doubled up as treble cable sun to moon
through cash patio reaches of your earthen mind
report
*
Report you dense and truly, those masts
or do they fold in gremlin and cover your eyes?
I raise a crown, found it auto loud in my furls
is this engagement toupee cement frown radiance?
I had to hand this soap back, pearl repaid in fools
A conversation between Clark Coolidge and Parker Menzimer regarding To the Cold Heart, the Chinese poet Hanshan who inspired it, and much else, can be read here.
