Selected Poetry, Gregory Botts, A Painter's Commentary

It is a happy coincidence that Poetry Month and the release of my collection of poems should
coincide.

View Poem Here:
https://www.blurb.com/b/9811242-selected-poetry

Achilles/ Fire 1982

Excerpted from Clouds, leaves, waves.


4.
shaped spirits of archetypal
torsos, struggle, plunge,
release--
contemplating guilt, drunken
and whirled as dervish,
one--
plunging
to depths--
drowned in lust,
the fueled fires light the beach.

Black figures stand and stare
at shadows on the moon.
Philosophy, hardly biblical, is
powered by darkest boasts
the colors of Melville and Pollock.




9.
fires on the beach,
the silhouetted forms in black
wetsuits, heroic, from another age.
the Shadows of blazoned on cliffs,
voices whisper, here and then--
video and photos flash,
that we were here, alive tonight.
A plane blinks in the dark,
we look for the moon to rise,
platform Holly flashes like a cake
on the horizon.

She told of Ed Ricketts and
further away places in Mexico,
The Sea of Cortez, I remembered,
striped snails and his saying,
“...that many of the inhabitants
of this region, could scarcely be taken
as obvious.” We saw figures
in the stars and then forgot.








This post is related to recent post on Achilles/ Fire event in 1982.

see:http://extragregorybotts.blogspot.com/

New Mexico, selections from Road Movie

1
just wanted to camp, reading outside,
Rexroth, a beautiful poetry, reading
bringing along
Kerouac and Snyder, Ginsberg
and that fellow, Witter
Bynner from New Mexico
to read Chinese
poems, poets singing of--
Jade Mountain
mad in the mountains
wedding the west, to beloved
Snowman


2
going through all the places, people,
rehearsing the story of California
the Big Sur
Yosemite monuments
the desert Mojave

SB and LA
New Mexico,
the old west like, my movie,
ROAD MOVIE
WEST of

MOVIE/ DREAM
SECOND CHANCE
the homeless guy
no name, over there, black and blue
in the shaded corner


3
country music on the radio, out of state plates,
through windmills, my poem
becomes the song of lonely spaces ,
yearning for love, the connection in the wind
headed into it, south from Texas into New Mexico,

the west, incredibly--
as I cross that invisible state line, crystalline shapes
and cotton candy clouds reflecting earth, red
planted in green, turning to prairie
grass deepening into sage, thunderheads

beyond covering mountains in distance
anvil like cardboard cloud,
pinned to flat lonely space, varoom, the Greyhound
bus to Amarillo, passes in black smoke
and I'm left,

Santa Fe train, a B-line into the distance my spirit
here enlarged, nothing like it,
Arkansas woods are interior
compared to this New Mexico-- space
and lonely wind, following the long march

of Katchina looking power-poles, a raven swoops
surfacing and the sinking,
butterfly stroke, swimming in this bottomless
lake of saline solution, unstinging to the eyes,
surface and sink

heavenly body of water,
immersed in my journey
leaving behind inside turning
to outer space
dying into this land, free

a soul left out flapping,
wholly bodiless
in the sun and wind, clearer again than I
could remember, here remembering
it even as I see,



4
Gallop, New Mexico
is the perverse twistings of one culture
upon another,

a sorry drunken Indian asking--
we were spotted as tourist,
I surprised myself
by letting out a rude reprimand,
I became the sorry one

as I watched him shrink away,
we turned
fast from this town of pawn and aimlessness,
lost without expression, lost pride
with out place,

invisible at the coffee shop,
we sheepishly downed
our enchiladas and coffee,
drifting out
onto the mysterious emptiness

of the winding path, confused,
washing machines on roads and
refrigerators in the cottonwoods
winking in the hot breeze
wrecked cars,

there a painted pony
lovely against the mesa sky
we WERE GOING TO A HOPI DANCE
a corn dance,
dancing for rain

and thanks for what crops were received
Kachinas represented these feelings
and prayed for the life, to continue
a tradition of designs carried their selves
weaving disparate places like Phoenix

and Hotevilla together, no Indian is the same
as I am not, the generalizations of an-- other
do not work, who would be the more spiritual
one? question mark?
I have a stone thrown at me

and a motion tells me to remove
my hat, Gringo with no respect,
the others all shielded from the sun, with umbrellas
and hats, too? I shrug, this is tricky
business but the mesmerizing music, or

rhythm continues, continues and that
is what is important, this art is about
continuing, being something different, and the
same, that stopping-- owning their life
is just their-- just wanting to go on, asking

nothing, before the corrupting addictions
to quell a people full of fear, arriving
we roamed to the rhythm
kicking shards
of dreamed pots at our feet, everywhere

where pots and bones, the procession
arrived in green fir and black grease,
the rhythm produced in the hot sun
a hallucination like
a hand bringing

something forward unseen, coaxing
over and over, the drone of bees, design
brought forward, differing feelings
and fads of the place, the figured spirits,
there, we watched from the roofs

of the tiny rock town, spirit ladders
reaching to the sky, watching
shuffling from foot to foot, captured
there in a time’s bubble,
clouds arriving

and-- looking up with surprise
to passing wind and rain
every one murmuring, the drone
continuing
the brief sprinkle

fleeting into dryness
of desert air, continuance,
the rhythms of sex,
or death, in the
cycle of life, beauty way

the meaning of order,
in a poetry of belonging
to something even larger
than this sacred place
standing apart is not allowed

or could one be capable of--
buried in that dirt I can only glimpse--
I cannot give up this divided life
a hypocrite? thrown stones
reluctantly we leave,

amazed and confused
driving away, to our civilization
and culture, we regretted
our decision, to go
we had been close and needed

to leave, we ever anxious to keep going
on to the next,
off balance a bit, we drove on
hardly stopping through
the tourist laden trading posts



5
dashed upon--wave after wave
remembering the yellow rabbit
brush, blue sky, green against red, earth
of New Mexico design, brings me back
coloring the place, already

but now, I’m driving highway culture,
East, now and I NEED TO PEE
I have to begin the search, losing the freedom
relying on Burger King--
I’ll be happy-- to see, my old friends,

I miss, but then the doubts, I’m so out of it,
out there, here, the
tightening spaces
make obvious the social ills
having become the life,

of the east,
the built upon built,
upon tension of--
the power politics involved,
becoming savvy in this Art,

the painting’s sensuality, so old fashioned
in that we don’t have the depth
for those big paintings any more
and the fashion changes to small,
“A Good Thing,” they say

the profane world is the subject
what we can see, that’s trouble enough
forgetting that inner space
although it is obvious
that it is becoming the only space

left, the new West the reaches
of the Romantic inner distance,
the debased art, the empty church
everything for sale,
in the what’s new

next economy, picking through for Poetry,
“negotiating rapture” I’ve heard it said
beyond innocent transcendental reach,
my poem repeats ,
un- original thought

if this was all there was, I’d end the poem here--
in desperation
add glamour to that despair
never seen reality, the ordered poem
what Long Island had been

looking for new poem, to keep going,
flipping through the fashion magazines,
having replaced art becoming the art,
next thing,
down runway,

More stars than Earth

1

something about the birds, on fire
remembered
falling, into, strange mix
"the world is a sewer..."

in cartoon bubble
"and we live in hell"
that deep, the depth, the deeper
deep, to emergent, bubbling--
any figure’s depth,

like this crisp rising shape
now, the Surface!, then fragmented--
some how, in cycle, no one reality-- knows
all the new worlds of flowers, stars
his Pennsylvania, my India

the father seemed the reality--
death, he was reading
Fate and Power, deeper
between the classic surfaces
of blue Freedom, of indifferent sky
marching Egyptian fate, the stars

Western dream and
Asian meander
dark propelling light
“go on, wandering--”

2

lost, distant
the inevitable fall back into dream
the heights abstracted, distance
he fell into October
evening passed to dark

interminable stars
out there
that depth dreaming creation
the nothingness of
the everything returning

3

black, black, black
color in the dark night of stars
is the mother of beauty

the black and white of drawing
into the color of the day, the sun
the hero of DAY, the idea-- of JANGLING
DIAMONDED BEAUTY!
there! He said it-- out loud!

others could
hear, OH HEAR! it darts and stings
It’s this sensibility, this nature thing
he said it was all a camouflaged
religion of sorts

order it all from there
ordering from there--
red and yellow stripes
he’d been all over the place
had a dream

a shield and its dreamer
this black landscape
all the possibilities, weaving
between them, the light
the BLUE remembered hills, into leaves

4

made an analogy
to the world, a world

it falls and recycles
just busy work
looking like something
though-- here in the studio
a wall

repeating he became another,
a cartoon self somewhat
seeing himself in this balloon
this other-- in fallen--

what they called HERo
in his “as if--” world
made a mark on the wall
being there in the dark studio
the stars
the lack of surface--

then always still coming fore,
the he, the him
making, over hatching
here
here
the will, underlying eternal

WILL--
beauty, it lifted him a moment,
beyond, the desire
he saw it in a dream,
a lotus flower at the Botanical Gardens
it was really truly amazing

5

major trope OF
figure and ground as ONE
all together
like Pollock, they probably
would talk about it

there sober, over the table
in the cold kitchen
late at night, the stars, revolving round
the branches swinging

he'd seen the branches in the studio,
high up, in the sky lit window
swoosh, how to get

to that seriousness
THE comic tragic serious
of it all
staking one's life on meaning
some thing or cycle of being
or just the sun

light-- to dark
up and down
from out there

in here

got something to bring along
dwell there
the black stars
the blue sky
his eyes

half shut he fell
back on his heels
trying to be
there in the half light
hearing the frogs

6

He was out there
“after he was dead,” someone said
some of them kept on
he kicked around in what was left
it hadn’t meant anything, to anyone else

this wasn’t his biography or something
they didn’t know him, for he
was already dead for sometime
but he found some pleasure
in looking over there

in the failing sun
fearing the stars
but relishing their crystalline
air and shimmer
dead god being god
dead

7

a design

on a wall, the black paint
stars
talking to himself
looking out there, beyond
everyday ideal, moment
falls, no ideal but ideas,
revolving

ideal world these phases
representing the painter
painting the aspen tree
among the September
leaves

8

drawing the two together

the sea and mocking bird
stars
sprig of lilac
forever rocking
incessant death, rocking

death, and whispering
what he knew he couldn’t say
that gulping mystery seemed to
swallow him up

9

turning, turning,
in the same wind
beside the same blare, of the same
sunset, gone
into dark landscape
the space, revolving
in the thousands of miles

and hours of speed, of solar wind
who lasts? no man-- the tradition
who is that, collective
large red man reading
woman rocking--
sun and stars

10

POP!
some strange religion
of his own making
vibrant light, reflecting
between skitter and hop

here we go
between sun and flower
hero heightened
and clouds
and leaves the waves

solar hero and sun smeared villa
the red walls, dream in stars
bird flies across the floor
there then hi up--
in Silhouette

11

he needed some stars, he thought
untitled, in the stars, maybe--

Jack Frost never thought
he’d get this far,
to see them all stacked up
like playing cards
a Parcheesi game
of life, Joker sticking out behind

12

stars above broken leaves
the sunset diamonds
and aspen eye
everything together-- sunflower

seeds dribbling behind, striped

13

the experience, in the pokeweed
abstracted TO HEIGHT, what was
seen
falling back around
through, THE stars,
STARS

he was connecting all these new paintings
back around
these new walls
are exciting, HE SQUINTED at first
he was making a picture of the whole

the form of the world,
he was happy he had seen, the
fictions together, revolving
all along with the breaking
of this super man,
at hand--

the rending apart
he said
the SPARagmos, he read
was THIS-- is LIFE!

14

old poem

that suffices, back in the library
asleep, through the years, revolving
stars turn dipper dipping
all forward motion, it seems
can't step into the river twice

but if one ran far and fast
enough ahead one could
see it coming
his, dreams in white shapes
he’d seen before
in deep space

14

they evolved into
the distant, sun
maybe too exuberant
falling in flame


the ship in the night
massive, dark
silent slivering, that Greek
severity of line
history's weight
of wrong--
Short shank--
was light weight

even
a little carried away--
prone to, to become
well, transported!
spirited away
what was!

happy he did
he would get through the night
morning always came
he always felt like going on
he supposed,

15

out there in the blue sky
wind whipping

sierra snow still beyond,
those daisies were waving
the red Pompeii like reality
heightened to diamond
from sun-- flower, blue

clouds puffing to thunderhead
in eternal height tinged
turning to evening
slate and yellowing to stars
purpling and the black dome closing

round dipper star
heaven lit
star, figure representing whole
that's it--
at that moment

that which was gone--


from Back 2 the StudiO

Since Clouds, leaves, waves. 1996

Clouds, leaves, waves. was published in 1996, by Turtle Point Press with a preface by Harold Bloom.

There have been poems written regularly since 1996, but unpublished.

This site will record them.

There is 'Desert Poem' a poem written after the experience teaching at Deep Springs College in 1995.

'Long Island' follows and becomes the beginning of 'Road Movie' in 1996.

'Florida Poem' was written in 1995 after a painting trip there for a month in March 1995.

There has been 'Road Movie' started in 1996 and the last finished editing was in 2000.

Then, 'All One, falling.' written in 2001 and edited to 2003.

Back 2 the StudiO, is from 2005-06.

The method has been to follow journals of daily ideas and of painting in the studio. In the transcribing of them a rhythm or voice was found and it continues to this day, evolving as it goes on.

The writer is a painter and has always been aware of the lack of expertise the poems have in relation to the expenditure of energy in painting. I am aware also of the difference in daily habit from my writing and a poet writing daily, being his or her life.

Again, I am a painter.

But this writing continues and I have rather naturally continued recording it and so here it is.

I reserve any judgement myself and as Harold Bloom said in his preface to Clouds, leaves, waves., "it is not meant to stand alone."

Of course this is a question that presents itself as time goes on, what exactly is it?

Without the internet it would be as a friend said, 'just put away in a draw.'