Landscape: Weather Becoming Dolphy

Hello friends.  Hard to believe that it's almost all-star break already . . . need to crank up this summer a little bit for some fun.  At least we haven't been getting hammered with heat like last year.  Anyway, not much to write, so I thought I'd drop my favorite Eric Rensberger poem on y'all:

LANDSCAPE: WEATHER BECOMING DOLPHY  

evidence of high wind 

everything that gets so far off the earth 

is returned to it thrown down 

new growth starts up 

the bones of what did tower

/and the animals get their backs and rumps roughed up from 

   bowing backward to the gale 

/and the birds are made to skim an arm's length ahead of the 

storm 

/and the people are built with extra bracing, like houses 

that expect the worst  

and what's out there 

the weather is the same as what's 

in every human heart 

bad trouble and energy 

enough to make it real  

/but over there on the edge of the earth is a black wood with 

extra-human sounds in it 

/and if the animals and the bent trees keep pointing in the 

right direction 

/and if only the wind can reach that far and then blow through 

it and if  

the right fingers appear 

with their silver keys 

unlocking faster and wider 

than the wind can 

slam shut the doors of 

the wood, we'll finally hear  

Dolphy before his head burst 

playing how to live 

between out and inward weather 

and what's so beautiful about it 

after all, what's so 

important about someone 

pulling melody after melody 

out of his bountiful mouth

Damn, that's the shit, right there.  Makes me think about the basement over on Gardner, punching amplifiers with horns and guitars, making them rage like wounded animals . . . or, even further back, the hollowbody Kay and the clarinet, the cramped apartment on the first floor of Rufer, we had to shut off the fan and close the windows during the take, then we ran outside with icewater just to get our body temperatures down after the take . . . or, all the way back to the decaying house on the ridge in Elletsville, bourbon flowing like water, Bob & Eric & me finding our way into the universe, howling like banshees . . .

You can find the poem here.  You can get to the index of Eric's poetry site here.  Maybe it's because I feel this stuff . . .  but you should feel it too, because it's immortal.


Everything is swimming around, past images flashing like lightning . . . I'm feeling the need for a stiff drink right now . . . but cash is short, the liquor store across the street is closed, and morning is less than eight hours away.  A little sonic cure will have to suffice: the Catkillers from '96 with me, Eric, and Rob Stockwell.


Wonderful World of Sound by billzink

Ah, that's the stuff.