(Leopold Bloom at U., original drawing by DWB)

Transformed

Moments of transformation have been the stuff of literature ever since there was literature, and even before there was what we call literature, only the raw materials of literature (language, experience, and imagination) being shared around the campfire, and probably, at a deep, internal, and shared level, even before there were campfires.

This small offering with three titles (below) is my contribution to the language and literature of transformation, not that I haven’t tried it before and won’t try it again, too.

But here I think I managed to capture it pretty good.

I don’t know where the Muse comes from for any of us. But I do know that muses do exist, with both capital and small M’s; and I do know too that poetry itself is the original art, the biggest art, the most common art, the rarest art, the simplest art, the deepest art, the widest-ranging art, the hardest art, the easiest art, the most neglected art, the longest-lasting art, the poorest-paying art, the purest art (in its purest forms), and the most relatable art, for everyone, of all.

Everyone’s last words are poetry. So are their first ones. Harold Bloom rightly called Jesus the poetry of America. Miguel de Cervantes used to stalk through the streets of whatever city he lived in at the time, searching for words, looking for poetry.

In the last few decades of his life, Pablo Picasso started pumping out a LOT of poetry, and went so far as to go around telling everyone he knew that he wasn’t really a painter, he was a poet, and that thousands of years from now, no one would even remember his paintings and drawings – but they would remember his poetry.

I have absolutely no idea whether that is true or not.

All I know is that Pablo was a genius on the level of Einstein, or probably higher – and he said it.

Everyone else can turn into a machine if they want to.

I’m gonna remain human.

Signed,

The Drifter

Poetry The Teacher, Or:

New Knowledge, Or:

The Invisible Blue Butterfly Forever

I was walking

around in their house

trying to clean

my pipe

with a broken coat hanger

when it happened

and I literally

dropped my pipe and

the coat hanger and

stopped in my tracks, yes,

as if I’d seen

a ghost. Next, I felt

nailed to the spot, as if

my feet had been

nailed into the floor

and my hands

had been

nailed into the air

but almost without

physical pain, I was

looking, staring into

the distance with

wild and rapt

eyes. I was, as so

often lately, alone,

but I was also not

alone as the hosts, the

ghosts of all the poets

who’d ever come before

me were humming

through my blood

and before my eyes –

only for

an instant.

When I say

“all the poets,” I also

intend the oral poets

who’d written in air,

for our ears, hearts,

and souls,

for thousands

and thousands

or more

years before

“literacy” began –

the anonymous ones

who weren’t anonymous

at the time, not to

themselves

anyway

and what else

matters

in the end

or even the

beginning or

the middle,

really,

truly.

A life-changing

instant; a one-of-a-kind

moment. I had no

idea

in this spot of time

where that

had come from;

way too sudden.

One instant this,

the next instant

something else

entirely, forever, no matter

what; like a mermaid’s snap

of her magic fingers or a giant

monster of beauty

shaking a rag doll

in sadness and gladness.

Instantaneously

turning

from caterpillar into blue,

if invisible,

butterfly. Without even

knowing

you’d been

a caterpillar in

the first place!

The invisible blue

butterfly now, no matter how

impossible

it sounded.

I took up

the pen

which had as if

magically appeared there

for me

and the paper

and slowly wrote down

the first

Word.

The Drifter ((otherwise known as Dale Williams Barrigar)) drifts from here to there while always maintaining a center that is always centered upon The Arts, with the oldest of Arts at the center – usually.