“I Wrote In My Notebook”
10 Square Color Poems from Colorado
(In the style of Jackson Maclow)

These poems are an attempt to marry modernistic
and post-modernistic aesthetic practice with primitive spiritual
and meditative practices.

They were constructed by writing out (word by word and mark by mark)
a single paragraph by Gary Snyder on the subject of cave paintings.
The paragraph was incribed on color paper squares bought
at an art supplies store in Boulder, Colorado on August 10, 2006.

The original order of the color squares was as they came out of the pack
when bought at the store. The poems were written “randomly” by
re-arrangement of Snyder’s paragraph following the color on which
each word or puncuation mark had been inscribed.

The words and marks were written on the color paper squares
in Allens Park outside of Rocky Mountain National Park
on August 13, 2006. The squares were re-sorted by color
and the poems were written into my notebook three days later
in a cabin at the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, Crestone.
A fox-person ran by the cabin while I wrote the poems and made
his way into the sequence.

I designated five words per
line to follow Luis Zukofsky
in his tranlations from Latin.

The poems were finished at Logan Square Library, Chicago.

Orange Poem

Twisting , cave the , creatures lines
Ancient of antler , ; life below

Ground hasty other true

White Poem

And fissures of ; scribblings half-done
Over this figures cocked horses
Elk the walls . ; paintings but



Fox-Orange Poem

Turnings of claw-scratchings slides early _____________________(A fox
Of crossed of exquistite up _________________________________shows
Wild antlered with mineraled crisp ______________________________up
Fitting , , _________________________________________________at the creek.)



Yellow Poem

The sea old & , engravings lines
Out the , fat bulls alive
Long-lost , into spread photo-realistic



Pink Poem

Of a , wallows clay little , ;
Up a , wild creatures the
Economical the across not



Green Poem

Out, stalactites bear in sketchy
Signs images rise pride profiles
Huge-horned outlined on , space ...



Dharmakaya-Blue Poem

Walls , of finger-tracings and abstract
Over graffiti swimming of noble
Bison powerfully : swift , outlined lines



Brown Poem

Cave concretions floors human lines
Just images of : deer lions
Bodied and gives , fitting in
Curving



Light-Blue Poem

Calcined calcite , bears scratched-in
Or, swirl animals with with
Great painted art sometimes over
Calligraphic confident .



Black Poem

Bears bears bears bears bears
Bears bears bears bears bears
Bears bears bears bears bears
Bears bears bears