[Tony Barnstone]

He Who Holds Fast to the Way Desires Not to Be Full

The urinal at Kwik Way restaurant:
My body drains a yellow sunlit summer
balled up in orange antioxidant
fruit, which is chewed up by the consumer,
me, then drops through the esophageal
passage to the stomach where the acid
disassembles it like rind from peel,
dispersing it through bloodstream to this flaccid
flesh pipe that pours its pungent uric flow
from me to not-me in an acrid stream.
I’m in a sleepy haze, happy to release
what I have taken in, like a gas hose,
and shudder, shaking off the world’s live stream.
Graffiti reads, Don't mind your brain! and Peace
Out, motherfucker! and I do, believe
me, for some thirty seconds. Then I leave.


Laozi, The Dao De Jing (400 BCE)

...or maybe, "Remind your mind" would be better?


He Who Holds Fast to the Way Desires not to Be Full

At Berkel Berkel’s sushi restaurant
my body drains a yellow sunlit summer
balled up in orange antioxidant
fruit, which is chewed up by the consumer,
me, then drops through the esophageal
passage to the stomach where the acid
disassembles it like rind from peel,
dispersing it through bloodstream to this flaccid
flesh pipe that pours its pungent distillation
like battery acid in an acrid stream.
I’m in a sleepy haze, happy to release
what I have taken in (like a gas station)
and shudder, shaking off the world’s live stream.
Graffiti reads, Tattoo your brain! and Peace
Out, motherfucker! and I do, believe
me, for some thirty seconds. Then I leave.


Laozi, The Dao De Jing (400 BCE)

[Jim Ramsey]

Hi Tony,

I am just going to give my impressions for now. There's flippancy here and a somewhat self-conscious mockery of easy philosophies and trends, some creative rhymes, some bathroom humor, and a description of the pleasure of releasing a few degrees of body heat via urinal transference. You seem to have the functions well described and bring your important images clearly into view ("Ahem," some will say, muffle a cough, and turn away at what you are asking them to imagine....). I don't think the theme is for everyone but I like the attempt at portraying the surprisingly complex and flighty ways of entertaining one's brain that a bathroom trip can entail. What failed for me on a couple readings was the ending, because I kept interpreting that the N was tattooing his brain for 30 seconds rather than instead reading probably more sensibly that he was releasing what he had taken in and was shaking off the world's live stream for thirty seconds. This might again just be my reading comprehension skills at fault, but I thought I would mention it. Oh, and "shaking off" for thirty seconds has an interesting triple meaning I am not sure you mean to be there....

All the best,
Jim

[John Riley]

I don't understand why this poem exists. I'm not saying it shouldn't exist. Everything may exist. It's that I don't understand why it's a poem about the Dao. The only thing I can decide is it's satirical. If not, it's more a poem about anatomy than ancient Chinese philosophy.

The Dao is not an easy philosophy. It's more of a mercury philosophy. It flows in and out of the head, which is why it needs quiet contemplation. Is taking a piss supposed to be a joke about quiet contemplation? If so it falls flat for me but may not for others.

The poem itself is not a problem for me. It describes what it's describing. I simply do not see the connection between the poem and its stated topic. I'd like to know what I'm missing.

[Jim Ramsey]

Hi Tony and John,

Just coming back to clarify my comment—I am getting sloppy in thought and speech these days. By "easy" I was meaning something along the lines of "conveniently appropriated" by people who want to put on airs and pretend to higher planes of existence and greater purity than others in this modern world by referencing myths or religions for which they have only shallow familiarity. I was not seeing the poem as an attack on anyone who truly studies and appreciates Confucius or his teachings, although I do see it as touching only superficially on the subject by intent, and perhaps it should be more clear it is only poking fun at the flights of fancy that bathroom trips and bathroom walls inspire. A free-spirited intelligent young lady I liked in the early seventies once announced around a beer keg that sneezing or taking a good shit were every bit as pleasurable as having an orgasm. No one thought she was diminishing the importance of sex. She was only reaching beyond taboos in the way free-thinking intelligent people with a sense of humor do. I find that when I hold in pee beyond my capacity to do so, the final release is truly a freeing nearly religious experience. And I am only slightly joking, because it is close to a purifying truth.

All the best,
Jim

[Tony Barnstone]

Hey Jim,

Ah, interesting. The tattoo your brain thing I thought was just an interesting bit of bathroom oddness that might suggest a kind of mental shift/reset, but if it is not working I might reconsider it and sub something else there.

And yes, the bathroom humor is at the core of the poem, John and Jim. The esthetic is one I define HERE, if interested, in the mode of Lucille Clifton, Jonathan Swift, Robert Hass, Anne Sexton and others, what I call "Impure Poetry."

Still, there is a serious thought behind it, a bit like Andre Serrano's "Piss Christ," which was supposed to force the viewer to confront the idea of an embodied god, a god made human, with all of the sweat, piss, shit, spit, blood, semen, etc. that humans have--very much like the woman of your anecdote, Jim!

John, re: Daoism and pissing. The title is a quote from the Dao De Jing, and at the core the poem seeks to evoke 1) The sense of transience and flow of the Qi energy 2) The paradox of stillness in transience that made Daoism easily weave together with the imported religion of Buddhism, joining together to make Chan Buddhism in China, which became the better known in the west as Zen Buddhism when it went to Japan. 3) The irascible and norm-breaking embrace of natural being in Zhuangzi, who questions all of our fears and social norms 4) The focus on internal travel versus travel through the world in the Dao De Jing 5) The desire to be free from desire that Daoism shares with Buddhism, to release and be naturally (wu wei), to act without acting, which is also at the core of martial arts philosophy and practice 6) The use of parables and humor to shock the reader into a new way of thinking. 7) The dualistic vision of the world as bathed in illusion from which we could wake up if we saw the unifying force behind all things and followed the Dao (the Way), which the Buddhists call Dharma (the road of righteousness). And I could go on, but those are some of the basics I was thinking of when writing this. Hope that helps! Best, Tony

[Alexandra Baez]

Tony, what an interesting way to address the themes that you mention! I did get the gist of these before reading your comment. I love the title and the imaginative descriptions.

I was thrown somewhat at the beginning, though, because your first line sets the n at a sushi restaurant, which naturally leads me to imagine him in the most stereotypical situation within this context—seated at a dining table. But then, the next thing I know, I find that he’s actually taking a pee, although I don’t actually realize this until L5. “My body drains a yellow sunlit summer” is poetic enough language that its meaning was obscure to me until I was given the more explicit details that follow.

I guess the fact that the fruit is antioxidant is important in that it embodies cleansing, part of the cycle of nature? The word sounds a mite out of place with its new age healthnik vibe in this poem, whose description of “the process” is otherwise general and feels symbolically universal.

I wonder about “shaking off the world’s live stream.” Clearly, this is playing off the other “stream” just described, but does it do so perhaps too vividly? It leaves me imagining the entire world having taken one huge torrential pee.

The tattoo your brain thing I thought was just an interesting bit of bathroom oddness that might suggest a kind of mental shift/reset

I see “tattoo” as a symbol of indelibility, so this seems awkward company to your themes of impermanence and fluidity.

The end of your poem is surprising and has the gripping feel of fast-paced fiction. “Then I leave”--the crowning simplicity.

I thought I had posted on your last thread (apparently I skipped the last step) that I find the premise of your philosophy series of poems very interesting. Within the context of their presentation as a group, the references at the end of each would more likely make more sense to me (assuming that there was some sort of an introduction to tip one off) than they had initially. I’d really be interested in seeing the whole project once it fully manifests.

[Julie Steiner]

Hi, Tony!

I like the mix of registers and literality/carnality vs lofty thought.

That said, until I saw the comments, I took "My body drains a yellow sunlit summer" as a sort of postprandial stupor at the table, not as urination in the bathroom. I thought the references to a consumer, gas, and flesh pipe referenced the gastrointestinal tract (although "flaccid" should probably have cued me in on that last one), and that the release was either flatulent or diarrheal, and still in the main dining area. Even the graffiti references didn't clue me into the restroom, because graffiti is everywhere.

Perhaps the series requires references to specific Berkeley landmarks, but based on the very Korean menu, I wouldn't characterize Berkel Berkel as a sushi restaurant. Gimbap restaurant, maybe, but fewer people know what that is, and I didn't see it on the menu. Maybe "At Berkel Berkel's Seoul-food restaurant"? I would have liked a more obvious reference to a bathroom in the first line, but only because I was too dense to crack the code without help.

Capitalize "Not" in the title?

[Tony Barnstone]

Julie & Alexandra,

Thanks! Very useful. I changed the graffiti, shifted the location to an Oakland-based place that has a pun on the Way of the Dao, and more clearly set it in the bathroom to avoid the confusion.

One thing I am playing with is taking pull-quotes from each of the texts I am riffing off of and putting them below the poem along with author and text. My worry: It will seem too academic. However, it might also relieve the anxiety of readers who are not very familiar with the texts riffed off of. They could just read the pull-quote and get the basic concept. In this case, I put the pull-quote into the title, so it's moot, but when dealing with Gadamer or Merleau-Ponty or Descartes it might open the door for more readers? Not sure.

[Julie Steiner]

I like the changes (particularly Don't mind your brain!), and the note. (I've never understood why note-haters feel so condescended to by the notion that the author thought they might not know everything. People who don't like notes shouldn't read them.)

I didn't mention it before, but I struggle to see how the parenthetical "like a gas station" is intended to work in its sentence. Who or what is being compared to a gas station? Grammatically, it looks like the narrator, but releasing what one has consumed doesn't seem like something a gas station does. Is the scenario like in the restaurant restroom being compared to one's frame of mind in a gas station restroom, and the relief of finally reaching that blessed destination after a long drive through the boondocks? That seems more likely, but the grammar/syntax is no help.

[Alexandra Baez]

Nice changes. To me, “Don’t mind your brain!” sounds more Daoist than “Remind your mind.” Also, the latter sounds a bit more high-consciousness and as such, less likely to appear in graffiti.

As to Julie’s comment on the gas station simile, I took it to mean that a truck periodically supplies the gas machines with gas, and afterwards this gas is gradually dispensed into vehicles.

I love the quotes idea and think that would make a world of difference for me, at least, as a reader. Otherwise, I find myself looking at the author/book names and frantically trying to distil their essences in my mind so that I can draw some kind of meaningful connection between each poem and the book. It feels like a sort of final exam, and I’m always worrying that even if I tried, I’d get it wrong. I’d rather have a clearer idea of what you, the poet, has in mind. I think your worry about appearing too academic is a non-issue here, because you’ve already opened the door to that appearance with your references. Might as well grasp the nettle firmly and let those references do more of the work that you want them to.