With The Water
Photography by Gamaliel Lane Gardner-Masters
Thomas Fitzsimmons
18 poems (mostly) from WITH THE WATER
1
we are the fair
fair folk we are
magik makers
wordweavers we
make songs make
songs of anything
from anything
whisp twist fling
roll run fall
fly & all that &
love & war & bird
& olden stories
we
weave bone twist
nerve mend flesh
with tune words
move of fingers
on strings on
breast on heart
juggling moon
stars storm blood
bonegrip break &
headscreech
stone & eyes &
eyes &
old old
eyes
|
2
everything dances
everything is
danced
& the dances are better now
sinew dances sinuous
not muscle not bone
dances
flow dances
loose
lithe sinew ripple
& long long
enough lasting for music
to get everywhere in
fill
the space there is to
fill
cancelling distance
musicfull body
bodyfull music long
sinewy
flow
dances
the revolution proceeds
noisily/quietly
in the most public places
|
3
this tribe has a name
the name is gentle
this tribe has a dance
the dance is give
give what you do have
see
what you give laughter
tears give
yours
give simply a hand or
hair your
face to be seen
touched smelled
to be known
news give
craft tricks
play
give time mind
flesh all
give all take
all
these & all you
can spin or dream
give
the dance will find
its dancers
tribe gentle will
increase
|
4
yes
soft
soft soft
in a world
all
edges
damn
|
5
son
at 13 bitterclosed sometimes
opensoft & always & always
vulnerable hell
to be 13
wiggly
in the crook of my arm
miserable
in the clutch of his words
a boy like others unlike all
slimtalldriven
having to fight
since love comes hard & you
have to know who you are
& the wispmoods
balance on always bleak the edge
of disasters known
mindbody
wanting scream squirm hug
frenzy
denied except in ceremonies of
ball snow water
hands
an embarrassment eyes
selftrap mouth betrays home
no safer sometimes it seems than
any where I
paw through 41 years
must
somewhere in all that junk be
some one thing lived that
given might gentle it
|
6
snowfold
deep
snowfold
warm in cold
no
sound
falling
to the ground no
sound
re shaping no
sound everything
holding all the old
in
warmcold
nosound
godworld white
everyone
belongs
& those who love
love softly
|
7
sometimes
sometimes there are holes in my head
in my mind
sometimes there are holes
where a word should be or image
& in the holes color
pinkholes sometimes greenholes all
smoky blueredholes not smoky
sharp sometimes
there are holes in my head in
my mind &I watch them
hoping
|
8
east village
they stayed high for 3 days while
I was there maybe more
before & after sweet
quiet people but grey there they
worried me so the morning I left
while everyone was still
asleep I went out & bought
the fattest roundest
sunfullest oranges I could find
& put them all over the pad
for them
to turn them on
|
9
trees/morning
mornings are one of the times early
one of the hush times when around
every bead of light/dark a color
waits & the green smell of all
new & the almost hum of music
just about to become & air has
hands & small cool fingers you
can feel them on your cheek up
the back of your neck on your ear
lobes & eyelids speaking they say
come look look touchtouch just
here come & the birds know
all about it whispering of it
laughing easy because you sleepy
are so confused so tentative
in the hush the pause wait just
another second hush time when
trees are just barely
awake & beginning to stretch
|
10
meditation with interruptions
Hair
sex symbol
books say
absent from sculpture
but suggested
found in story painting song
found best
on a woman's head
long hair is best
(she gestures "no"
fingers on my arm my chest
where short hair curls
(yes)
as at the mingling of her thighs
(nice nice very nice)
but from here for me her no
is yes: the long hair falls
flows
her shoulders
sings her fires)
long hair is best
nothing's quite so living changing
spread over fingers
drawing light
a gentleness
massed in the hands
dark
warning an ancient pain
lightening to laughter
gentleness/pain
all mixed together
tight twined with light
in a woman's hair
the body's quietest speaking
a simple accusation
nobody
nothing
could have invented hair
(Yes hey good christ all right I promise I
...the next...one will be about...hands)
|
11
hands are for touching
did
you forget
|
12
moon over
everywhere trees
black
one hand
is a scaffold
two hands
a manger
angels mistake you
|
13
with the water
the quiet center is
what it is
all
about
the quiet center is
to be
reached
for
when the breath
is short
the pressure builds
behind eye
lids
sucks
gut
pushes
hollow a pain
up under into chest
the quiet center is
where it is
all
at
it is being
& not being
scared
it is being
one
and letting all
be
and so being
all
blessed
& blessing
it is
the only way now we can bless
be
blessed
stripped of stories
not ready for the hard
images we have made
are made by
|
14
Four GHAZALS (a Persian form)
re made from the Urdu of Mirza Ghalib (1797-1869)
with the help of AIJAZ AHMAD
#1, Ghazals of Ghalib
Neither song's flowering nor the music's weave;
I am the dissonance of myself breaking.
You lose yourself in shaping a curl;
I am caught in the future's dark mass.
Brags of wisdom to hide simple minds;
All thought given to the riddle of pleasing.
Now you have come, be blessed as I touch
My face to earth in longing and prayer.
It is no wonder you came to find me;
I am miserable, you cradle the broken.
|
15
#2, Ghazals of Ghalib
Tulip, eglantine differently their colors wear;
Any color carries our Yes to the spring.
Needing a reason to be with them we
Master the drawing of beautiful women.
Who drinks for pleasure drinks only darkness;
Night and day I swig forgetfulness.
In the bleak hour, heads should fall upon jugs;
At the hour of prayer, faces should lift to the holy places.
As the cup of coming spins and spins,
So the man enlightened drinks his own essence.
|
16
#3, Ghazals of Ghalib
Each step shows me how far off the end is;
The desert runs ahead faster than I walk.
In the night of my loneliness grief burned my heart so,
Even my shadow left me, like smoke fleeing fire.
My blistered feet bleeding a string of red pearls,
Marked my trail through my desert of madness.
You spin the bright cup of a hundred disguises;
I bring the vision in one startled eye.
Fire seeps from my eye, Asad!
I light the whole garden: soil and dry leaves.
|
17
#4, Ghazals of Ghalib
Waterbead's ecstasy: dying into a stream;
Too strong a pain brings its own balm.
So weak now we weep sighs only;
And learn how water melts into air.
The spring cloud thins into rain:
Dies into its own weeping.
You would riddle the miracle of wind shaping?
Watch how a mirror turns green in the spring.
The changes, Ghalib, give us joy of our eyes.
All colors and kinds, should be, and always.
|
18
windprince
seacurve falconflight
windprince
tonetwist prancing
to kill
earwisp falcon spill
deep breakdrill
bonetwist clawing
make a song of it
seaweave make a song of it |
[All poems (except "this tribe has a name") are from With The Water, New Voices Press, Detroit, 1971. Copyright 1971 by Thomas Fitzsimmons. "This tribe has a name" is from pp. 92-3 of DOWNINSIDE: a meditation on light for one to three voices, a Press Zero book, Copyright 1970 by Thomas Fitzsimmons.]
Links to material related to Thomas Fitzsimmons currently on-line (April 2003):
Homepage to the Thomas Fitsimmons & Karen Hargreaves-Fitzsimmons website:
http://katydidbooks.com/index.html
Short Biography of Thomas Fitzimmons, on his and his wife's website:
http://katydidbooks.com/KT_TFBio.html
"Poetry As A Survival Technique" -- talk/essay by Thomas Fitzsimmons:
http://katydidbooks.com/KT_ezine_01.html
"Is Two: Becomes One" -- monthly love poems for his Beloved, spanning 5 years:
http://katydidbooks.com/KT_My_Beloved.html
First Sequence from "First Alfalfa Cut" -- haiku:
http://katydidbooks.com/KT_ezine_02.html
Four Translations from JAPANESE POETRY NOW by Thomas Fitzsimmons
"Top," "River," "A Boy And His Mother," "For You":
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~yp5k-tkn/english.html
Published Works by Thomas Fitzsimmons -- in print and out of print:
http://katydidbooks.com/KT_poetry.html
"Menton: Another Perfect Day In Paradise" by Thomas Fitzsimmons, POETRY Magazine Archives, March 1998:
http://www.poetrymagazine.com/archives/1998/mar/fitzsimmons.htm
"Community" by Thomas Fitzsimmons, POETRY Magazine Archives, December 1997:
http://www.poetrymagazine.com/archives/1997/december/fitzsimmons.htm
Mesa Falls
Photography by Gamaliel Lane Gardner-Masters
A Few Words About Thomas Fitzsimmons
The editor of this website had Thomas Fitzsimmons for a creative writing class at Michigan State University - Oakland (later renamed Oakland University) in 1961-2, when i was a sophmore in the second class that would be graduating from MSUO. To my personal values, Thomas Fitzsimmons was one of the three best (and most memorable) teachers i had at MSUO, 1960 - 1964. The other two were Samuel Shapiro and Sheldon Appleton (and one shouldn't neglect mentioning Gertrude White and Maurice Brown -- whose enthusiasm for their subjects was utterly contagious; i am *still* enamored of the English Romantic poets Mrs. White taught with such love and excitement -- & with the writers of the American Renaissance that Mr. Brown enthused upon).
Probably about a decade after i graduated i went thru my old college notes, to discard those i knew i'd never want to look at again (Russian & Calculus notes, for example), still holding on to those i thought i might look at one more time (tho i never have). i was quite surprised to find notes from one of Thomas's creative writing classes where he informed us about the contemporary poets we might want to be checking out over the years ahead. i distinctly remember him mentioning, near the beginning of that lecture, that there was no need for us to be taking notes, that we wouldn't be tested on this. But i took notes anyway. At that time i was utterly unfamiliar with *any* of the poets he was recommending; and i doubt i retained their Names afterwards. So what a surprise it was to me, looking over those old notes, all those years later, to now *recognize* the Names of all these poets i'd been buying books by (in bookstores near Wayne State University) and *reading* the past several years! (Allen Ginsberg -- whose poetry record, played to a senior class in 1968, got me fired as a public school teacher, Gary Snyder, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Kenneth Rexroth, Gregory Corso, Bob Kaufman, Denise Levertov, etc.).
After i graduated, my sister, Carolyn, attended Oakland University from 1964 - 1969; thus she was there to know when Thomas would bring poets like Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder to give readings... Special Memories, for sure.
One time Sis suggested i come along & we sit in on a Fitzsimmons lecture. i stopped by the bookstore, first, and ended up buying a copy of Lenore Kandel's Word Alchemy, which i brought with me. Before the lecture Thomas thumbed thru it with interest; he appeared to think well of what he was spot-reading, and made mention that Lenore had been Gary Snyder's first wife (a fact i have never seen mentioned anywhere else, and google-searching on Lenore Kandel for a hopefully-upcoming presentation, that fact *doesn't* appear to be on-line anywhere).
Tho it was probably nigh unto the hundredth time Thomas had delivered that particular lecture, i'd never heard that particular subject dealt with during *my* four years at MSUO/OU. It was probably the Most Important lecture i've ever heard in my life. It dealt with mind-grids -- how our backgrounds, our beliefs, what words mean to us, personally and specifically, *modify* the message "coming in" that we are reading or listening to. It made me deeply aware that, as a writer, there was no assurance that one's readers were going to receive the meaning one was *intending*.
i remember how Thomas mentioned he'd tack the poems he was currently working upon on the wall, so that he'd glance at them recurrently til he got 'em shaped-up perfectly. i remember him mentioning he knew e. e. cummings, personally.
i remember, fondly, the couple poetry readings by him that i attended -- one at InScape, the other at the Royal Oak Library, circa 1980, whereat he looked like an ancient Chinese sage... And, indeed, it seemed that some of the poems he read, on that occasion, had a bit of a classic Chinese feel to them.
My own personal favorites among his many works (several that have come out over the past 20 years i have not had the opportunity to read) have been Downinside, Morningdew, and With The Water. At this point in time i guess one can feel especially *blessed* to be of the few who own copies of these (as with Lenore Kandel's Word Alchemy & Love Poem Book).
Thomas Fitzsimmons's relatively recent (published in 1999) Iron Harp: Birth of the One-Eyed Boy is surely one of the most gut-wrenching collections of autobiographical poems in the 20th century. The only works i'm acquainted with that are comparable, in sheer excellence & intensity, are Lenore Kandel's First They Slaughtered The Angels, Allen Ginsberg's Howl and Kaddish and Li-Young Lee's The City In Which I Love You.
The first edition of Iron Harp: Birth of the One-Eyed Boy -- last i looked at Thomas's website -- is still in print; but the entire edition was only 100 copies; so it will likely not be in print much longer. It is appalling, to me, that poetry of such exquisiteness is brought out in only a hundred copies... while popular dreck continues to sell its millions of copies. But... that's America!
~~ nem
