| poetry |
MORPHOLOGIES OF PARADISE
"I soil the paper to prepare it
for hallucinations. I reverse the
day's attempt to assassinate me."
—Matta
Shamanic jimson in everyone, the human Xibalba
a cosmogonic patch where twisting language retwists,
metaphorizing at the speed of dream, touching
the opaque shoulders of smoking trees, lighting
campfires in the backs of gigantic caterpillars.
This perception of paradise, first apprehended in
the Upper Paleolithic, I experience asleep,
via dreaming. Paradise is close, so close as to be
maddening. Paradise is in our brains.
What Blake calls Albion is this ancient creative zone.
The Fall is not original sin,
the Fall is that abyss between here and original imagination,
which we inherit as shamanic longing.
As one attempts to cross an abyss, metaphors
transmogrify so quickly
the initiate's receiver jams, loses its bearing,
deconstructs, like those divers
making their way through the 500 foot
waterfilled tunnel leading to the Cosquer cave—
the silty kicked-up sediment blinded them,
they lost their way among submerged stalagmites,
drowned.
In the 1940s, the 20th century broke in two.
A revised version of hybrid man
—Auschwitz and Lascaux in the same brain—
complexed its obsession with "homeland".
Fueled with primal glory and Zyklon B, he sings:
"I'm always trying to get back
to my little caul shack on Ancestor Delta.
If somebody else—Kosovar, Arab, or Jew—
happens to be there,
I'll claim he is air, and plant my fangs
in his 'absence.'"
I sat down on the steps of the Ivory Tower and wept. The Amer-
ican's Guatemalan husband had not only been kidnapped but tor-
tured and murdered. She doesn't know but knows, her 11 year old
son is nearly cross-eyed with knowing, and I know, sitting on
the bed's edge, before Channel 12. Trying to gag her terror and
grief, so as to carry on with the interview, she finally pulled
her blouse up over her face—as if to teach me another dimension
of "the faceless woman" said to crouch on a bridge below the
roots of the World Tree. I dream of lifting up this head, and
assessing its weight, knowing full well it is impossible to
weigh the unending assault on women's bodies and personalities
by the guardian husbands and brothers.
"Be forever dead in Eurydice"
Be forever born in Persephone.
A run runs through the morphologies of paradise.
Boogie-woogie of our diagrammatic sentence:
death and the possibility of redemption in
a single act.
For 1500 years, Eleusis, spiritual homeland of the Greeks.
What did the initiates behold—which they were sworn
on the penalty of death to not reveal—in the Telesterion?
1] An ear of corn repeated in silence?
2] A cereal wafer, the seed-kore, which they ate?
3] The Divine Child, or Savior, variously named Brimus,
Dionysus, Triptolemos, Iasion, or Elenthereros the
Liberator, laid in a manger (or winnowing basket),
whose flesh was eaten by the initiates in the form
of bread, made from the first or last sheaves?
4] An artificial vagina, kept in the cysta mystica,
which they touched?
5] An omphalos, or birth cone, representing the cervix,
with fruits and flowers, and a child emerging from
a horn of plenty?
6] The spirit of Persephone herself, returned from the
dead with her new-born son, conceived in the land of
death?
Whatever they beheld—since it was said to bestow happiness,
the true life, freedom, respite from all troubles—must have
confirmed to them: after they entered the earth they would
rise again.
And who knows as well what the sacred king saw
the instant the goddess veil was lifted—
an afterlife? The origin of life? A scowl-veil of eternal
gray?
Ah, dear tricky veil, you make us think, quest,
you are the rent/unrent conundrum
provoking our initiational probes to translate
the plutocracy of the literal.
Not to lift or rend, but to translate the veil.
The head of Hercules must be veiled
for the god, via omenta symbolics, to be reborn.
Yet we know that rebirth too
is a halfway house.
No one has been to death
and returned to say: Emily is there, following her fly,
or, Artaud is happy, he has learned to bowl,
or, Pinochet is a 60 jab-a-second forked barbecue.
Dear veil, speak to us of your fiber origin!
"We, the Mothers of Lascaux, extracted
fibers from celestial plants, located
the entheogens, set undulating
broken lines as coiling winds, winding torrents.
Channels of moisture circulated in our mouths
imbuing thread-like fibers with helicoid strength
by opening/closing our jaws, working
our entire faces, while breathing, we formed sound
strands, speech lattices,
what you call the revealed Word,
the veil word—
thus to lift the veil is an act we Mothers disavow.
To lift the veil would be to see the earth
naked, speechless, as on the first day,
amidst the chaos of origin fiberless spirit,
the not we knotted."
CRANIOLOGUE
Wearing my reconstruction mask
I rest, a 90,000 year old skull.
Having been tumbled by Olson, Pound, Williams and Homer,
my age is ridiculous. You can't begin to grasp me,
even my youth. In the Border Cave I have to tell you
hyenas and porcupines worked over my skeleton.
Only my cranium remains, thus the epic and the long poem,
thus the attempt to write into paradise.
On the frontier between South Africa and Swaziland
I ponder tectonic shift,
and darling I must tell you I also wonder about
the Panama Isthmus which Steven Stanley claims led to
my presence among, I mean its lifting to seal
the Atlantic from the Pacific some 2.5 million years ago,
eliminating woods where I clambered and climbed
as Australopithecus, meaning I had to evolve or die,
and most of me died, my life was and is
at the hands, nay at the uterus of the planet.
I had to come down, be terrestrial and deal with
sabertooth, a horror unknown until the 20th century.
The gist is converted, invented a baby sling,
made use of my foetal-surge brain,
learned to bond, and to shape rock.
I am much more successful than you who read me,
I speak, as a kind of gay son of rock,
or the pore of one origin,
frozen, immensely disadvantaged, but an acute
failure the poets have had to transform.
All long poems lead back to me,
not heroics, or the tragic eclipse of love,
dryness darling meant I went on,
I and my columbines, my radiant nicked progeny,
thus I also speak as the gay daughter of rock,
for as a 90,000 year old no one can locate my voice box,
I disappeared into you, or
into the prototype of you,
my mask is calcium white and I did not ask for it,
I would have preferred to confront you
as Atlementheneira, one of my names is the now-called
Dordogne, only 30,000 years ago.
But neither the visionary nor the personal
can account for the planetary roundness of my skull
nor the 20th century white mask
lending it the dagger-chin of so-called humanity.
What gets me about the Panama Isthmus ascending
and via conveyor belt winds
creating the Ice Age is that the oldest myths I know of
involve a cosmic dive of animals or shamans
bringing up earth from the depth of primal seas.
Is there a dream that old?
Can it be found? Or must I muse here in a drawer
that the oldest dream or vision
has under it that rising Isthmus?
Absolutely fantastic! Unbelievable!
As am I, perched, as a photo, in a book,
a Homo link, a homunculink,
my skull a rise, no more,
something lifting into view,
land bridge, the creation of humankind
masked by white that is surely the void.
Medieval Salad Dive
I don't see why I can't dive into that salad bowl
and rough up the lettuce, shaking my blubbery jowls
and uttering great gutteral growls, Grrr, I'm
a medieval German and I'm feeling frisky and
in need of salad dressing! So bring on the fine lady
who wails perpetually, "O Wotan, strike me dead
if I'm to face another day!" Strike the tambour
and stomp your cruddy feet, men of my tribe,
for tonight I dive into the salad bowl!
from 1001 OPERA LIBRETTI
A young couple, recently married, attempt to defy a new state law forbidding procreation.
The languid, multimedia portrayal of the obsessions and problems of a Communist politician's daughter's undergoing psychoanalysis in pre-War Berlin forecasts an unhappy end.
A terminally ill insurance investigator initiates a complicated scheme to be charged with murder and thus sentenced to death, causing his family to collect a generous insurance settlement; but for reasons beyond his control, his plans go awry posthumously.
Just after a young girl learns the facts of life from a beloved aunt who is dying, love blossoms, prompting the girl to break away from her mother surrogate to become an independent adult.
A fading pop singer falls in love with a legally underage girl with pop-music ambitions.
Juvenile zombies guard diamonds hidden in a sunken ship, initially from piracy by their avaricious parents and then from retired policemen.
A teenage black gang, railroaded into long prison terms for crimes they did not commit, becomes a popular cause for fashionable people, who eventually succeed in exonerating the young men, the story ending, alas, before we can discover whether they can use their rediscovered freedom beneficially.
A masked rider becomes a hero for the oppressed, successfully stealing from the rich to give to the poor until his untimely death.
The protagonist finds a strange coin that gives him an inexplicable but visible power over others.
An African American housekeeper with theatrical aspirations is suddenly asked to substitute for her boss, a temperamental star, and after a successful debut, visible to all, becomes a potential star herself.
A series of confrontations between a purportedly defecting spy and the counter-intelligence agent who wants to unmask the defector as a devious double agent.
A hacker-nerd falls for a preternaturally devious teenager (of indefinite gender) who initiates him into a life of computer crime.
Blue
In some languages, the word "blue" does not exist. In others, the word "green." In
my native language, the word "color" does not exist.
A man was given everything in life but the color blue. All would have gone well
had he not been told of his deprivation. Thereafter, he vowed to destroy
everything in his path: home, country, confidantes, God, all the other colors . . .
Because I cannot pronounce the word "blue," whenever my conversation calls for
"blue," I always say "red" instead.
The Proper Age For Marriage
What is the proper age for marriage, you may ask? During the last or next war, a
woman is married to a soldier. He could be dead or mutilated at any moment
without her knowing. She remembers almost nothing about him except his
trembling legs. To simulate this effect, she places one of his army pants on a
chair, and fans it rapidly.
In Water World
The sea repeats itself in dreams, a green-gray world of water
Calm boats frozen in shade
Pale blank clouds, pines, rocks and kelp shrouds
Like woolly fish in mist pink distance floating
The beach stretches as far as the sand bar
Clean detached waves wash over dry stone, tears of rain drift
The water is perfectly still, restructuring everything
A Trip to Oblong Oyster Island
I
Summer evening on Oblong Oyster Island:
A duskish river-dragon stretched along
The inverted bed of a daffodil sky
And then slipped into the bosom of the lake,
Leaving the lean-headed eagles to yelp alone,
If indeed that's what those noble birds were;
While foxlike in the vine, purple spirits,
Wreathed by clouds of dangling river-smoke,
Protect the villagers from (or expose them to?) all harm.
II
And ghastly through the blue drizzling rain
On the bald street the blank day broke, a flower
Crushed underfoot in the valley by giants
As the pimpernel dozed, and the slender
Acacia began to shake so violently
The white lake-blossom fell into the lake—
Another day of the imagination
On Oblong Oyster Island.
III
We decided to run down to the cove
Across the mile of warm sea-scented beach
(For once the biting flies were having a siesta)
To where the startled boats are banged against by waves
While the stunted sails on the large horizon
Take on dubious proportions, suspended
Like the eyes of the luminous-nosed fish
Which gleam outward, a sea of beacons
Aswim in the coal-black looking-glass calm
Of night on Oblong Oyster Island.
IV
The Disembodied Sleeping Sages of Oblong Oyster Island
With their stovepipe hats, small beards and semi-permanent frowns
Will linger on in my imagination,
I fear, long after the sharp tang of the island's
Excellent cheeses has faded from my taste buds.
Space my reviewable future (a creation myth)
Mistrial sanctity
green panda blanket
Imports and preserves me
Vichy body tarmac
how many more fuckspace
poems do I have to deface
launchable crackspace
what dirt rose maps chemistry
chopped slowly but foul
mistrial fern
was severely compressed
durspace burial
coronary mistrial
legs small triangle scars
bogart you grab my arm
it will break
and I will get away
Wanna see my ticket stub
for evolutiocoronary up
spaced mistrial's old hotel?
more than any
o mistrial
perscoronary
I rely on space
for my security
and well bespaceg
it is coronaryly logical
to conclude I
must be attentive
to mistrial's vulnerabilities
I must pay careful
attention to promoting space
and protecting space
my spaceterest
space spaceterest
The one who
controls space
is the one who
will wspacen mistrial
next war.
Daddy, will you
pray with me?
Let me
tell you
what you
dcoronary't
need
how come
mistrial history
of mistrial
left off
mistrial list
isn't sixty-five dollars
space my reviewable future?
until he killed
civilians god smiled
he's coronary mistrial
of his mspaced.
she's bustspaceg
through mistrial
wall and captaspace
wcoronary't you
understand mistrialm
ever? This lspacee elegy.
he's a down to earth
failed oilman turned
nuclear arsenal wielder
because he skipped
his thirtieth anniversary
Yale reunicoronary
like my bromistrialr
he is ambivalent
about his educatiocoronary
All Ears
I'm a scavenger not a doctor
I charge nothing for services to strip
mending is an impossibility for me
as in the home all intimate details
are details. Are you not the angry
star of your own tomb-filled churchyard?
Identity theft is the fastest growing
crime in America today. Fork-sticker
in a corpse's rep, very recorded
human history. #3.50 for that
thirty-five grand 1st edition in
your window, if asked by the corpse's
blood? Harry?
And the prayer thou hearest me making
It's like you and the chimp have
been sheperd's pie together for years
wearing a dude's glassnet ratings
how do I know your work is as
good as I'm not being paid to say so?
At the Meridien
documentary dust laces the bowl
moth worms sprung from unnuked birdseed
lay all over beads of sweat
the bird would stalk a flash to preen on the keyboard's shoulder
wanton belly schmooze grafted to elegiac dismemberings
available on a double digit page number, white sweat
on Avenue D to buy ice water overdefending the canal zone
via integrity-of-the-complete-asshole defense
warped acolytes transgress at the panel
in my head: granite stuffing
underneath trampoline, eight variations
on the theme of willful unemployment
desert critters with cable, an invoice
was going to be here first, black square on white wall
bird shit caught by NY Post cover newsprint:
"America takes its vengeance on Timothy McVeigh"
laying on hardwood sagging in the middle Dutch Elm Disease manual
Modest Mouse spins by postcard red dot and blue foothills
dapper twit spazzing in the blacklight
tree pollen down throat
baked beans and escargot
in the present tense, sprayer aimed away from nest
thurston MOORE
this is allen ginsberg:
baby girl reaches for his face
his nose
glasses
anything
tries to stick her thumb in his mouth
a curious and favorite past-time
children everywhere
do it
the viscuous
pulpous
mouth
and now:
heres one
with beard!
shes 3 yrs old
he sucks her thumb
into his mouth
and out
and in
here is a grown up
who's into it
unreal
FUNNEL
Language wishes she didn't have so many words in her,
or at least that people would be quiet more often.
You're drunk, and you think language wants to be tickled.
I personally understand, but it bugs the shit out of her.
She loved it when I went to the Grand Canyon and screamed
the single word "funnel." I only had to scream it once,
and bats peeled out of the underbrush, rats scampered,
a stagnant pond stayed quiet under its echoing top.
A wilderness bunny came out from under a bush and flopped
at my feet, exhausted. (I felt so pampered,
not having to forage for bunny food in killing canyon heat.)
But back to the single scream, after doing it only once
I felt Language wriggle and try to get away from me,
but I knew in my heart that she really wanted me to chase her.
She began to talk (a glorious thing) and told me about a joke
someone played on her, papering her office with memos.
She said she thought it was funny at first, that a rose
by any other name, yadda yadda, but then began to feel sick
just from the jumble of garbage around her. She said
it gave her a kind of anxiety that words cannot express.
PENCILS
This is the ballad of pencils: don't be scared.
Mourn only the lost sufferers who ate their candy bars in fear.
Fear led them to a life half lived, as we've learned;
bite your erasers, boys, and watch the comets streak.
If it weren't for frozen pansies in a broken Spring
our attention spans would have been cut short,
but not for long. The team's mascot jumped down
through empty bleachers tonight. You don't want the curse
of remembering—but even less, the curse of misforgetting.
It is a thin spectre alive in the middle of the mind.
Forget what you'll forget, and write everything down
tremulously; for one vacant look, one death,
signals to us the end of mischief . . . and of life.
The beast will raise its rotten horns and whimper like a wife.
Those garlands, young romantic, we so earnestly deplore
will hang upon our banisters, our fences, and our doors.
ZEES AND EFFS
First, try to market yourself after a long pause.
Then open your pockets and show people how much
money you brought along for lunch and just in case.
Let it fall out like rain on the ground.
Then stand there, fancy buffoon that you are,
and speak cloyingly about the virtues of the avant-garde,
the subtle wonders of a couple of things that have come
down the pike since you graduated from college.
Are you a man of common sense? Then prove it
by straightening your tie backstage before the show.
Remember: you are it. There is nothing between
you and your desired wish. Even if you put up
a cheap stereotype in the place of your human shape,
no newspaper reporter or part-time cosmetologist
will be able to penetrate the façade you have so nobly
erected, or estimate the amount of time you spent
preparing your moral fibre—pressing it, kneading it
into shape, shuffling away the unwanted chunks.
Postcard
hard edge in middle diamond surrounded
by rough velvet reef fingers lost
contours of baroque thick
gooeyness statue on your head icing
on cake bludgeon
in chest when drum is banged voice satin neckrising
and falling waves of frozen
I am always crying
ocean days you regret on a beach melody
where you can imagine living can't finger
pulling me somewhere
never been with swells that don't undulate out of
control and don't want to leave necessarily except
for
hotel man drumming his finger
impatiently on oak desk
Vein
woman as dairy farm alone
eating in restaurants (no
not that again!) to avoid the inevitable
smoking alone checking
diaries alone in dreams where
big breasts deflate upon awakening deflate
when i see you
(when not hyperventilating)
when not seeing you
when not simple hypodermic
when not burrowing
better to be hallucinating hungry in a slightly
weakened state
like alaska
neither famous nor real woman to
create orgasmic experience never
stopping never grabbing
forever bound or
immanent stampede
Ruins
man in a cap behind
a tractor infinite
rows
behind curtains
open spaces part
bled through
road stretches accommodates
cup left
on a greying sofa
bouncing eyes
closed as if
sleep
serum
(similarly) spilt on the floor a
lit
metal sign noisily
moving in
high wind
lunge in a
neon desert bleached
tree parted
squeals thump
slap of an outstretched
hand if clasping
of muscles relaxing
coat on rack
gripping
foolish like
love sandwich
wish
brownish green
light spreading late
withholding tax
fabric brushed
against consequence
accidentally
William ALLEGREZZA
1.
questioning the order is reasonable
see segal—that's what the monsters are for
the chthonic figures that threaten our sanity
the gorgon or
the sphinx
our boundaries are ambiguous
and revenge is a mixed form that brings the drive for power
into focus
(as heraclitus said, thought is common to all)
2.
in forgetting the arrangement of hours
the phenomenal intercession replaces
the hand-maker with contentment and pattern
or patterns before the organization extends
lines like fire over desert valleys
3.
to
you
lightning
dull press
the organized
dig for
soil reclamation
project
#606372212
let's listen
to the
results
4.
at night you speak slowly
around us in the air that
trembles with metal rainfall
vanity
and the important mission bleak
our eyes are five in resignation
but still we hear heels on the concrete
and the sound of light hands groping
from GIHON
Chapter 33
I don't protest or object
I don't have an answer
stoicism is the only sign
that someday the ground
will utter a banging
noise like a brush being thrown in
a mop bucket
the search is endless
for a way to say
it's no different
whichever way you look at it
the things you are given you can't keep
an inch away
is as far as a thousand miles
a time will come
when you won't want anything else
the coffee cup
will arrive like each season
and you will not ask it to be different
or think that life needs to be
something other than what it is
don't lose heart
in the rag-tag procession
that wards off stinging garments
arguing that your less is more
that your more is less
dodging your being resigned
with shamed contortion
words resonate with sounds
the system doesn't go far out of its way
plans melt into action
that aids both sides
knowing no definiteness or simple truth
go through the instructions once
leaving behind something for
the fatherless and sojourner
at the bureau of tourism and library
you have bound me to my fellows
by removing the hectic exhortations
the distracted polemics
from mute tomorrow
these are problems we all can live with
the comic beacon exploring alone
hope's implications
whose proof
is only hearsay evidence
cut off from the apocalypse of myself
repeatedly trying to destroy peonies
putting off the intolerable
treasure map of my heart
I have attempted to take credit for the summers
perhaps i have exaggerated
the amount of my own negligence
criticizing one's enemies with a lie
I was only trying to help out
what is happening to us
in this land that doesn't exist
that resists every attempt
to settle once and for all
inextinguishable impulse of humanity to hide
muddies with anticipation
the image we in turn
inhabit with our dying
our inconsistent examples of delight
only the foundation remains
upon which nothing lasting can be built
INFLUENTIAL
I am wholesome yet heavily laden with sexual undertones. You'll
never be able to watch the Sound of Music again without thinking
of me.
IMITATION OF LIFE
Hey Mikey! He likes it!
WHERE I WANNA (((B))) IN THE NEXT ROUND
Floating on a bagel spread with Philly cream cheese. Ummm . . . himmlisch!
MY BOYFRIEND
In my dreams he has no head. That can't be good.
TIC TOC
When clocks say they have a Quartz Movement, what exactly are they talking about?
'The Varieties of Religious Experience'
'there is a verge of the mind which these things
haunt;'
—William James
there was a baseball, waddling
like a wounded baby chicken
limping w/ drastic formality
clobbered by learned repose
'I forked my body for money
but the food in me was sick'
senseamilia-climate ripe for growing
between the Tennessee border &
shadows of Kentucky
a color field painting
shaded by mountains
the ears a box-fan,
turning in the sunlight
as if rounding a corner
into acres of dogwood
to later keep tones from a radio play
awake in the room in it's strings.
since it's only to be cold
can the start
of the ending turn
in the window
'the result of hypnotic suggestion'
then continue,
a loose confabulation
of impossible spectrums &
speculative language
to go on like this forever
severing wires
in alarms, floating
here to hem of the porch
car cold to the touch
inside w/ the freon
contaminating breath
w/ respite, armory of air
turning in the clear
polish of dusk, blue
drug store facade
turned to aerosol-marks
like stone
or fresh quartz, a quizzical
stillness, the play in a prayer's
rigid wish broken open,
doesn't your mother
look just like Laura Palmer,
"I had lived in a duplex in Roanoke
a ghost stirred up
in the piles of phlox
an intellect perplexed & baffled
yet a trustful sense of presence
lent my hand and spirit
to another power other than my own"
MARQUIS IN A GLASS
there is no machine
Descartes in the womb of the unintended
weapons and sharp tools in a dirty dish
bleed the ghost of De Sade
73,000 days in Bastille for an honest fetish?
for practical love
science a dull guillotine
flesh upon flesh
animal earth wet fish
everything possible is scandalous
you pull your cock out when you're scared
to erase yourself
in the darkness of cunt
or the hinges of a door
all awareness is illness
angel whistling at a corpse grey salon short odors
why not steal the children?
irrational kiss
thick rouge knuckled finesse
what's more vulgar than the effete
slap of the glove—Montaigne Napoleon?
why beat the dog when you can feed the willing?
a villain is a nice shirt with a wet smile
and a ring in the tub . . .
evil in the heart of the mirror
hot pewter and broken glass
blood fills slowly the meticulous slit
fire "live" the thought
across the room the heart of the body
the scribbled voyeur alleges
the benefit of the parasite
walls spread the shadows
and it's all about feeling
barefoot and multiple various woods
order is not geometric there are cheeses
and liqueurs rice papers pistols and gods
aristocracy is of the spirit
brandy swaggers like candy
on the lips of organs
when spent
we are agents of forgotten seasons
left to cull the inquiry while Germans straighten the rivers out
your feet touching mine
at the foot of the door.
Practice
—for T. S. Monk
Monk put an apple on his head
the notes were superstitious
gathered in his knuckles &
the hairs of his face.
High noon in the orchard.
He paced the floor like a small general
His feet tore the parchment on the floor
He disregarded the fires in his room &
fondled the jungle on the brim of his hat.
Things burned without smoke
The fire in the red drapes was as pure as milk
& soft as a bird. He squeezed out
the words from between his teeth
The words circled the room like small airplanes
diminishing the echo in the fire
adding time & perspective to
the flaws in the room.
He muttered something about depth
& distance, railroad tracks, the
great flood. He rearranged his lapel
& the furniture, tearing the heart out of the floor.
He pulled some stones out of his pocket
got on his knees, called them notes,
made a path from the door to the piano
on the wall. He coddled & spoke to each stone
like a wounded bird. The apple rolled across
the floor, he smiled at it & stepped
on the fire at his feet.
Michael ROTHENBERG
APOCALYPTIC YEARNINGS
October 2-7, 2001
Blood and gold in leaves
Framed in window
Twenty feet back at desk
Sitting here writing
Inside my head thought
Sits in chair contemplating
Misery of stone stuck
In yellow clay derelict
Riverbed, jaw, sunbleached
Skeleton inhabited by
Boy peers between shadows
Wondering where's God
Manifest Destiny, Infinite
Justice. Take care of details
Go through changes
Earth will conspire until
She's feeling safe about
The moon. Like hot fudge
Sundae in a minefield
Don't say those things
You will regret. Close to
The end. 5 minutes. Now
No. It's not going to change
But there will be more
To do. Make love to me now
Or say goodbye. Great Truths
I have forgotten who
I am to know your needs
Last night I said you'd find
Your voice. You found a thread
Weaves. Hanging from peace
Flags. Oceans, skies, prayers
This way. This discipline
Act of selflessness in
Face of incomprehensible
Horror of impermanence
Tree empty yards, bed empty
Of lover who will lie
Beneath the plume and sigh
This day belongs to panic
Squirrel. Fir. Walnuts black
Slippery rot. Among wind
Chimes. Birdfeeder
Yellow mums. Screen door
Slams. I heard it. Vulnerable
Space. Move potted plants in
Build coal bin. Please don't
Bend mail to fit it into box
Pictures of leaves accelerated
Fall. Gusts. In someone else's
Mind. Plop! Walnuts. On steps
Jets & 7,000 reruns of suicide
Anthrax in Florida. India
Hijack hoax. Russian plane
Downed. Ten killed in
Palestinian-Israel clash
Bus driver's throat slashed
"Everything seems to be
happening in New York"-PW
Snake in a woodpile. President
Bush can no more "rid the world
of evil-doers" than he can stock it
with saints—Arundhati Roy
Million Meditator March:
Gospel singers. Sufi minstrels
Fish drummers. Ministers, gurus
Priests. Sword-swallowers
Fortune Tellers. Alchemists in
Central Park. Ex-communicated
Astrologers. Economists
Practicing organic solutions to
Technological problems
Automobile salesman
On the wagon. Evangelists
Offering free yoga to politicians
Peace police themselves. 320
million dollars U.S. aid to
Afghanis. Amazing Grace
Enlightened OM. Influence
Peddling. Supplication. Beyond
War-minded ego. Amen.
Charles Henri FORD
One hundred 69
Haiku for Charles Henri
By Charles Henri Ford
What am I doing
Here all alone? Reviewing the
Multitudes I've known
Two William S.'s
Made American History;
Hart and Burroughs
Didn't Sinatra
Know you gotta have stamina
To drink like he did
Ruth posed herself—did
Everything except push the
Button for Man Ray
Larry Sawyer—Premiere
American surrealist
Nuff sed
Wanda PHIPPS
morning poem #18
So far so mortgaged
soon you'll know
dubious powers
they say squarely
you keep Dali fashion
high inclinations
points look resourceful
gains protect your
birth wings don't
cycle solitaire pick
damn destiny
remember carefully
fresh lunar harvest
morning poem #39
if she took off her top
would that embarrass you
would you smile
and laugh nervously
would there be
room on the roof
for the orgy
if the music
was a little louder
would you remember
the color of her eyes
Pre-recordings (from the Akashic Records)
Are California and Nevada the same?
Burping the Tupperware
There was this guy who got stranded hiking
and had to survive on melba toast and toothpaste
An old woman wearing plastic rain cap and carrying
brown paper bags?Take your time?kneeling bus
stares at me through the window of Burger King
Brushed a spider off my shoulder in Montgomery Street Deli
A man a couple of seats down from me says "my name is Frank?
Decent exposure?the hook n' ladder ball
I know you don't like me?look I'm sorry?my name is Frank
Learning Improper Naming
I'm just trying to be friendly
She's brunette all over
If you were a man we'd beat you up?you're so easy to tease
Drinking plastic straws
You look like someone who'd go to France
Die flut kommen sie hier
Why aren't you in COMMUNICATIONS?
He always writes "conservation" for "conversation"
You look like the type
Should I leave my terminal on?
Don't you listen when you watch tv?
"The Wheel of Death"
Ever make noises when you yawn
. . . and my finger dangled,
and it sounds like you're in a cave?
I can see that
He's in his post-semiotic phase
We're running out of Jumbo Clips
Many people have believed in a pre-recorded Universe
County of Kings
"So, anyway, Tanguy had this painting . . ."
the top of my head
is the source of poetry
and the soul's exit—
that's what a doctor told me
who'd watched many people die
caught in a rainstorm
i lost my way in Kyoto
through dark alleyways—
sudden footsteps behind me:
you holding an umbrella
you invited me
back to your apartment
along the river—
sadly i made an excuse
and followed my footstep home
There is no end and
there is no beginning—there's
only always this.
*
I leave my
life with you
Make of it
what you can.
*
BASHŌ
This retreat of mine
a little old mosquito
the entertainment.
*
Something to be said
or why would I be here or
for that matter you?
*
What could be clearer—
a completely blue sky as
empty as empty is.
*
That's it—that's
this and this
you must ad-
mit is you.
Amazons of the Avant-Garde
—for Hoa and Dale
Varvara Stepanova stepped off a train more glamourous Hollywood
diamond-studded sentiment centuries’ in a handbag and valise
Karole Armitage hails cab for Tanaquil Leclerq she had boarded in
the steppes she stepped off the curb into a gutter on Oscar night
Nadezhda Udaltsova assault common perception for as much as
mark, to eat or dance while space is debated, frank frolics in west
Cubist syntax? a fore-mentioned chunk, a chomp of apple in th’ mouth
lettered dress assign to mix freefall, glazes sit in puddles, smooth
think and accrue those edges to frames okay to mimic freestanding
waste, Olga Rozanova never sniffed Europe’s keys, scarf whipped by wind
night obliterates Futurist coffee and doughnut as well as Kazimir zaum
Pub (Auction) was blinkered system forced meeting of wrap-induced
symmetry resented fabric Pablo textile Paul Exter Alexandra assumes
rigid complacency or slipped consonant you see a rhythm hyped inner
ceramics or theater non-objective Italy France in doing not making
Gonchorova of course alights mildly assisted breakdown flighted
rich broad vision post-sillinesses convincing her men of planar spike
roamed machinery okay public phallic cross ahead Mikhail Larionov
Liubov Popova popped Le Fauconnier deft Samarkand resolve prick
had reached an impasse devoted rest of her life to design and book
Art
When he looks at
anyone, he sees:
dollars. And she
wasn’t adding up.
Funky floozy
in a sideways suit.
Dank idiocy phonic
lackluster suck.
There’s a price tag,
and also a sense
of importance.
Raw cattle prod.
The Pulitzer-
nominated
journalist
jerks off.
The Critic
would rather
be watching
television.
Chamfered Guerdon
the perquisite summers rested in his lap
dalliance forebade innocuous stammering
aweigh glinted forecast in seismic stutter
he glanced at the trawler intact unbuyable
rest wearied Hunk stepping from his bath
obloquy at once the only response from
death he sits shimmers flaunting equally
starch and dearth commonsense pulling
traipse the boundaries highjinks whiff
origin and progress sentiment fin whisk
sideline management husky fortitude
wingless courage inserted look faraway
winchless toddy, marred packer sipped
waylay previous styles of search, ribbing
posthumous clutch defined in striptease
ignorant blessing bells afront rip torrid
Marisa To Liz
panties around
ankles
protuberance
compared
applied
push-button
phonecalls
late night
car rides
soap shops
“monks”
sidecar lust
pre-teenage
commercial
rent week
controversy
a slim request
a chance around
quest parried
symbol freed
but why is
pepper shown
nightly in
fringe retreat?
and legs
unformed
and feet
pronated
and lips
What Vincent Saw On 30th Street
plush boxes
I never even thought to look down the street to the river
a lawn is so rare in New York City
loudspeaker next to plastic pint glass filled with butts
rage soaring! high priest madness roiled
I saw her coming
bright lips tattered stockings tight skirt
patch of cloth
a nice fat one this morning
many did not freak
priestess hunkering over me
distortion pressed
dark threaded stare
X mars the spot
sped-up kissing
insisted she write
a pulsing from there
and she would
continuing
the dull throb rang in their eye
fat window sucked in by pipes
rain eyeing fat buttocks
a pale hint of memory
harmony doubled as nasal
hump of the whale wheezing
sister insister
slick wagon
foreboding memory
hunger peck
wry
antidote
Attila JOZSEF
translations by Gabor GYUKICS and Michael CASTRO
Elegy
Beneath a leaden sky plum, condensed smoke,
like my soul, trails low
above the grim landscape.
Swinging not gliding.
You stiff soul, you soft image!
Following the heavy trace of truth
glance at yourself, your origin!
Where below the liquid sky
upon the loneliness of lank firewalls
the moody silence of need
threateningly begins, dissolves the thick
gloom on the ponderers' hearts and mingles with
millions.
A whole race is molded here.
Everything in ruins.
A stiff dandelion opens its parasol in
abandoned foundry yards.
Through faded stairs of tiny broken windows
the days ascend to moldy twilight.
Say—
are you from here?
Where the somber longing never ends
to become like other wretched men,
squeezed by this enormous age,
and on their faces every line is deformed?
Resting, where the greedy
moral order is guarded, protected
by shrieking, crippled
fences.
Can you recognize yourself? Here the souls
petulantly wait for a designed, beautiful, solid future
like empty yards dreaming of nimble, noise weaving
tall houses. Glass shards dried in the mud gaze
with dull, stony eyes.
From the dunes, a thimbleful of sand
whirls below at random . . . and from time to time
blue, green or black flies flicker,
magnetized by man's scraps,
and rags
from the lands of wealth.
In her own way, setting a table, even here,
the credit burdened,
blessed mother earth.
Yellow grass thrives in an iron spittoon.
Do you know
what solemn joy draws me
that this land allows me not,
what rich torment pushes me here?
For his mother a child,
who's beaten to faraway corners,
will return.
Truly you can smile, you can cry only here.
Here you can endure, only here,
oh soul! This is my home.
—1933
The Leaves on the Tree
The leaves on the tree
sway slowly.
They are all already warped, yellow
and withered, soft,
A taciturn bird
twists among them.
AS if the tree were
its cage.
That's how my song walks,
sits hollow inside me,
and with it, its quivering shadow,
the silence.
—1934
My Fingers Possess Your Hair
My fingers possess your hair, under your skirt
my heart hides in wonder
and the leaf of a calendar falls rustling.
My old threshold cries like a child
when you come, to come more.
On a strong team my old days
bite my ears gasping—
why didn't you kiss us inside them?
And don't understand how pale, silly they are,
that your eyes cannot possess their light.
—1926
Art Among Men
She must have had wheels on her soles,
the dancer had rolled into our eyes,
she was simple, but shone, like a hummingbird.
Imagine a lanky demon swaying,
stretching above the swamp.
She'd bounded nicer than a young goat,
or like a rompish sheepdog whelp
when it runs and rolls on the lawn!
The year-round-sleepers would also happily
swing their hips with her!
I don't even know who was next to me,
as the cheers had whooped together inside us—
Then all at once the room grew cold
and us, men, poor people again
measured each other up, like strangers.
—1924
We Are Now at the Beginning of Creation
Behold, the corpuscular man exists already,
lives and moves,
extends thoughts out of himself,
retracts them and extends them again,
to gain some space ahead.
'til today he's struggled, now he saunters along,
but he's strenuous, and thus becomes ever stronger.
The stern law is gracious because of us.
We'll be efficient by tomorrow,
we'll swim, run, fly easily
and that's how it has to be,
that then we won't care for anything, only
for the clean clothes of our soul,
for the virgin body of our yearned dreams,
for his body to be song and truth,
for his shape to be godlike,
this future multi-cellular man,
who will be thrown out of us,
who will be us,
the great Further-Creator,
who this world now is sick for.
It Isn't Me Who Shouts
It isn't me who shouts, it's the world that rumbles
beware, beware, 'cause Satan's gone crazy,
flatten yourself to the bottom of clear springs,
smooth yourself out like a sheet of glass,
hide behind the light of diamonds,
among bugs under rocks,
oh, hide yourself in freshly baked bread,
you poor, poor . . .
Ooze into the ground with fresh rain showers—
in vain you bathe in yourself,
you can wash your face only in others.
Be a tiny edge on a single blade of grass
and you'll be greater than the axis of the world.
Oh, machines, birds, branches, stars!
Our barren mothers begs for a child.
My friend, my dear, loving friend,
either it's dreadful, or wonderful;
it isn't me who shouts, it's the world that rumbles.
—1924
Place Your Hand
Place your hand
on my forehead,
as if your hand
were my own hand.
Guard me, as if
you would murder,
as if my life
were your own life.
Love me, as if
it were pleasant,
as if my heart
were your own heart.
—1928
The Sun Still Smothers
The sun still smothers
above smoldering mountains.
Behind the shirt of gloom
a meadow glimmers.
My Homeland
My homeland, race and humanity
I do know my obligation,
like a mournful stranger at the end of the procession,
when someone gets buried with splendor.
I Don't Belong to Anyone . . .
I don't belong to anyone, my word a flying mold
I'm light and heavy like the cold.
An Ancient Rat Spreads Disease . . .
An ancient rat spreads disease among us,
the unconsidered thought
gobbles up what we cooked
and runs from man to man.
That's why the drunk doesn't know,
when he kills his fancy in champagne,
that he gulps the empty soup of
disgusted little poor folks.
And because spirit doesn't squeeze
moist rights out of every nation
a new odium startles the races
against each other.
The oppression croaks in choirs,
flies upon living hearts and also on carcasses—
misery oozes through the orbit,
like saliva on the faces of idiots.
On famine's stickpin stuck summers
hang their wings,
machines crawl in on our souls,
like bugs on sleepers.
The grateful devotion nestled in our
insides, tears roll into flames—
the yearning for revenge chases conscience
and vice versa.
Like a jackal that turns to throw
its voice up to the stars,
to our sky, where torments shine,
the poet shrieks in vain . . .
Oh, stars, you! Like rusty, rough
daggers around around
you stabbed me how many times—
(here one succeeds only to die).
Still I'm hopeful. And tearfully implore you
our beautiful future, don't be so dreary . . .
I'm hopeful, for unlike our forbearers,
we won't be impaled today.
Soon the peace of freedom will arrive,
pain will become refined—
and we'll be forgotten finally
in the shades of silent pergolas.
—1937
FREE INTERNATIONAL DIAL TONE SONG
1) open the phone book to international area codes
2) pick a collection of countries
3) dial the given area codes and make up the rest
of the number until you get through to each country
4) note the different tones and rhythms of each call,
but hang up before someone answers
5) visit the country with your favorite dial tone*
* optional and not as free
Duet Solo Dancers
—after Mingus
regular rhythm to
love making: bass-alto
(advance|recede)
bass--alto
(push||pull)
bass---alto
(wax| |wane)
bass----alto
)inhale|--|exhale(
the rhythm so regular
so ordinary, it is the heartbeat
so mundane, changing the oil
or raking leaves are commonplace companion thoughts
parallel to the way her
breasts look, heaving not yet, but
sliding after thrust, nipples taunt:
rosewood and whining like a clarinet
and eyes, Eyes hazel and fixed
on you, fawn(ish), mouth agape and taking
the smallest draughts of air
as you suspend the heaving torso
under the armpits
the lower extremities
writhing in a wet communion and
kissing,
lips sliding over to
accommodate breath.
—8/16/01
DATING THE INFINITE
I went out with the infinite.
We swapped spit
in the backseat of a jalopy.
Explored ourselves
while ignoring the movie.
Walked home from the parkinglot,
falling all over each other.
Detoured through the park.
Dallied on a bench.
I sneaked a hand up her skirt.
She held me by the stones.
We gazed at the stars.
I wanted to go all the way.
She said I could have more and more,
but not that.
My mouth to her bosom sank.
I kissed all galaxies known to man.
Above a zillion crickets,
she giggled: I hadn't scratched the skin.
My chin found her lap.
Her thighs spread.
The egg wet my face.
Till awake I became suggested.
Alone on my threshold,
with a scent on the fingers
and a hint in my tongue.
MARS THE SCEPTRE
I
Seated alone with globe fearsome
I await splendor. When debris cloak
new people then wrongly the world
be driven fueling those of holy debate.
Heart eye wings feet. The two which
upon arriving will elevate sanction
of blood often taken changing laws.
Square knife suicide from the East
sent image death fruit through brain
in a little apocalypse primitive veil
dance. Determined enemies raise flag
as antidote causing media to give
land a parched and dry appearance.
Through negligence a camera carried
serpents. By chief road by name river
comes humanity threatened by residue.
Like routine fields to idea to the horizon
after failure forgotten. After suffering
lost honor in the evil according progress
that inhabitants still on cue deny.
II
Underneath gathering found receipt
of barbarous matter. Virus deadly
terrestrial with form laid flat across
problematic lawn.
Its mark translated necessary before
device of window. One ubiquitous
channel serves narrative the kindred
must swallow.
Being no answer a wish by means
achieved by night employed to arouse
attention with small lever attached
to voice of ego.
Following beast inventor of fact fused
fire and sermon of days the moon
decreed by virtue of a single detail
suddenly become tempest.
III
Heads commotion tormented by right
inclination. Climate overdue surrounds
hate and persecution. Trumpet vibrate
broken mouth. Decay anointed in belly
and arms. The time the arch sparks
company less than a butcher. Unhappy
role accomplished, ignorant the mass
shall think child in sky without hands.
Bruised at store in midst of news, short
breath drawing another price from place
that tomorrow suspected. Pulls cloud
over houses and their foundation. Rains
credulity as long as the weatherman
leaves plenty of room for those rejecting
any other experience shared at table
soaked and granted to the people's army.
IV
Monopoly proclaim celestial commerce,
set aside judgment proven by alien agent.
His aspect spoiled response of mighty.
As ill-conceived counterfeit of courage,
sickness spreading at sound of a bell
shall make it appear that we are
authors of a great war waged against
phantoms seeded by infinite language.
By the same loud cry, antenna hung
on branch, fish cut to suburbs' plunder,
and bread eaten of saints' without faith,
the mask alone holds together force
of pyramid. Said populace covets
forbidden wall and vines are growing
that run to the top. Brother and sister
play a game the prophet explains
in numbers that don't add up. Confused
the choice at hand like circle of years
between start and finish of a book
everyone buys for its missing center.
In vain we search while the disaffected
plant clues in a library destroyed before
its permanent collection can be replaced
by something not imagined.
Juice of Dogs
I walked into the room
and felt perversely mistaken.
What was I doing amid all of these
people whose fabulous wealth made my feet rot?
Sinking into the sofa I muttered
"soggy cushions, spilt drinks, clear spirits."
A laundry list of mistaken identities
plagued my eyes with fantasies
of rubbing shoulders with big shots.
Opal carp brooch clip. Muddied earthen wear.
Sullen kettles of fish. Burnt tortilla chips.
I unscrewed the leash from the Doberman's spine
and came up stinking of lilac scented air, shaking my
funk at the remnants of glazed ham.
Let my capable hair stew gently in the muscular juice of dogs.
I am burdened by discourse, pulled into distorted buns
and made invisible by helpers. I'm chained to link fences
bursting forth with soft minds;
glued, minty, cross—
I give you this.
Having
I have a car with a spore
and it's been well-handled. Crumpled at the pegs,
though still intact, it's in tricky condition.
Guests in windows with candles. Scented oil spills
on kooky puddles. Gunk in bloom,
and a mantel for leaning on stoically. Jackass.
If you come, I mean, I have a clock, a patio,
some gherkins, and a pillow. Be prepared for
rivals like on a nature show. Certain
medicines have aftereffects such as:
dimpled boners, welts, bumps, and various
bonnets worn for hideous effect.
One huge room. Sharing the vehicle with a punk.
Bits of lint on the turntable platter. Capital Street
embossed with curled gold leaf.
You'd like it if you were a man. Mustached,
angry, and happily immersed in crud.
Butter Shine
I've had a staple in my spine
all this time
dipping a woolen spoon
into therapeutic proteins
and smearing the playing field
with a dollop of butter shine,
minuscule, delightful,
pitying the dork who plays
with words, their morbid order
barging into things
and generating steam with
broken spells when they come out
hissing behind each other's
backs; leathery necks, modern dance,
broad blue asses, there's a tone
I should explain here
of how the pleasure
builds; an aroma of broken spirits and
some junk in my pockets—
this must be the place.