There is something about a Blickstein poesy that feels good. But I am only interested in his words and what I might violently do to them.
Continuing in my research I unearth a biography on the same online site Big Bridge where it states “J.J.Blickstein is a poet, editor, ghostwriter, part-time truck driver, musician and visual artist. He lives with biologist/nurse/herbalist, Jen, and son, in the foothills of Woodstock, NY where he also teaches Nei Gong and the Chinese internal martial arts of Taiji Quan & Xing Yi Quan. He is quite fond of hiking, gardening, herbal medicine, bourbon, bbq, books.” For the record I do respect J.J. Blickstein and his work. His life does seem interesting. And perhaps my father was right in saying for years now that I have a screw loose. Forgive me, but one additional Blickstein poem urges my attention. The last of the three poems in Blickstein’s Baker’s Dozen published by Big Bridge Press is titled Lucky. I have no idea what J.J. is getting at in this poem, nor do I ever really get any of his poems, but that hardly matters at all to me. There is something about a Blickstein poesy that feels good. But I am only interested in his words and what I might violently do to them. Blickstein is certainly a favorite of mine and I would hope he understands my obsession with writing, as well as editing and revising.
LUCKY
Rat springs from a corpse as a god with a fortune of little vices and gestures as small as rice. A dream made of gold is submersed in milk as a blessing. Rat dances on a pool of honey playing a little flute with a dirty song for the intellect to thread a needle with the body as a red prayer. Rat feeds on darkness with lost language and a blind image until death passes through as a shadow without its memory because there is too much color and celebration for it to be part of the economy. No place to hide, the body becomes an orchard to feed thy neighbors with a crown of desire and a feminine noun in a coup of tiny black seeds as wise as a lover. A private assassin sleeps for gravity when you steal the veil between lifetimes and drink that water as a mythological feat with an unlimited body capturing the primal echo in the fingertips to share with anything that wants it and spirals inward until it burns the sand right to where the bridge to the belly kneels. A fly floats as a satellite to blemish paradise.
__J.J. Blickstein
Having previously shared my bubbling affinity for all things Blickstein, my last attempt at a deformation is based on this poem titled Lucky. In my personal world of fantasy, and possible delusion, it is I who becomes, in spirit, like the master editor Bob Dylan who fashions his own original poem or lyric from a pilfered text. And due to a perceived pretense this is a literary talent very few of us are capable of owning for ourselves to any lasting degree. I enjoy playing with Blickstein’s poetry so much that I may end up publishing an entire book of these revised pilfered texts side by side along with his originals. But would I need Blickstein’s permission? Or maybe just his blessing would do. But who would then own these now-deformed poetics?
The Lost Language
A corpse made of little
vices is submersed in
milk. Little flutes
play their dirty song
under a vast pool of
honey. Death passes
with no memory. Tiny
black seeds are part of
the economy. Orchards
feed on neighbors
making primal echoes
with their fingertips.
Sand burns where the
bridge to the belly kneels.
And paradise floats by.
for J. J. Blickstein
___M Sarki