FCF 76

The
Emperor’s tomb’s
suspended on an

island
in the
middle of a

lake
of mercury –
like something from

the
Mummy franchise –
wonderful – toxic, yes –

but
wonderful. All
Suffering Soon To

End!
Is that
a big crisp

ball
of Chinese
noodles? EB’s right

eye
reflects the
flash, or maybe

glows.
OK. OK.
No more wonderfuls.

Wonderful
wonderful
wonderful.

The ill wind collapsed against the bole of the aspen.

It’s Ok I say, I was a lazy worker and I stole.

Stars are livid links in lucid chains. One might start here, with the blank specimen, not thinking too much, or wanting to go home.

(Evil Bunny ducks behind a pylon)

The careful and muffled sound
of fruit as it breaks from a branch,

sand rustles, the wave boils.

I find it difficult to see in this murky darkness and can barely see the thick legs of the overpass plunge into the cold dark stream that barely moves. I call this overpass Ozymandias.

Along this pathway through the almost-woods, the wooden telephone poles are covered with layers of overlapping tags that sometimes form leopardskin patterns.

I go back time and time again to Longinus, who speaks of sublimity as corresponding to the collocation of the limbs in the body.

(I had to look up collocation; I thought it had something to do with a meal)

Everyone begins making thunder and stuff
& then everyone says something after a minute

After that, everyone’s a fly,
Having an example.

The earth is porous and we fall constantly

I guess these trailers lined up in the lot off the highway will do.

Or,
as JS
has it, suddenly

noticing
a clenched
fist and then

unclenching
this fist
and how this

sensation
of unclenching
travels up the

hand
and into
the chest and

into
the breath.
And the reverse,

clenching
the unclenched
fist and noticing

how
this sensation
travels up the

hand
and into
the chest and

into
the breath.
Or just spreading

hands
wide and
putting them on

the
floor and
then kicking up

into
the air
and balancing there.

Just
a few
felicities make a

movement.
The kind
that should really

have
its own
comic book. Exploring

the
great issues
of the age.

But
still with
action. And a

speaking
part for
the lightbulb. Death

may
be jazz-
shaped, too, to

take
death back
from death itself.

“I
am if
I go/If

I
don’t go
I’m not,” where

going
is a
wave. However, if

I
go, I
am or am

not,
and if
I don’t go,

the
same. This
is some color

but
what color
is it         the

color
of the
openings in the

human
body        tin
cans make roofs

[butter
me better]
so repeats; is

a
refrain. Suffices
for sugar and

salt.
Hey asshole!
Take ya stringy

hair
out! And
so when I

read
in the
New York Times

that
Anna McCloy,
the wife of

the
lone surviving
miner at Sago,

went
to Wal-
Mart (and the

Times
makes that
free nod to

advertisement
as journalism)
to purchase a

boom
box and
a Metallica CD

(and
that one
too) [spellcheck knew

to
capitalize [sic]
Metallica] in hopes

of
jarring her
husband out of

his
coma, I
am pained and

furious
and tender
and embittered at

so
many (socio-
economic, cultural, personal

et.
al.) levels
that I barely

know
where to
begin. I said

I
wouldn’t but
wonderful. The quantity

was
less than
is usually required

for
a small
atomic bomb. Subsequent

analysis
yielded
differing opinions. Continued

on
page A10. Now, keep all these videos open on your screen at the same time, sound on or off up to you. Get pen paper to catch every other image. When thing becomes thing
                I have sunk my grabb on stank pot putty.
           where to find this week’s inch or two?

[Note: Sources; a few bits from some recent blog posts, and stuff they link thru to … and American Poets in the 21st Century (eds. Claudia Rankine and Lisa Sewell); Shin Yu Pai, “China Diary Continued: May 21”, at Makura no Soshi, 1 Jun 09; callicoon fine arts (as found via Charles Bernstein’s Web Log); Geof Huth, “The textual Imagination in Morrisville, Pennsylvania”, at dbqp, 31 May 09. From here it’s (almost) all Rankine/Sewell: Mark Levine, “John Keats”, “Work Song”; Karen Volkman, “What is this witness, the watching ages”, “One might start here, with the blank specimen”; Osip Mandelstam, untitled, “Meganom” (tr. Alistair Noon) (not Rankine/Sewell); D A Powell, “Poetics Statement”; Jackson Mac Low, “25th Dance – Saying Things About making Gardens – 22 March 1964”, in “Language” Poetries: An Anthology (ed. Douglas Messerli) (not Rankine/Sewell); Peter Gizzi, “Plain Song”, “Château If”; Juliana Spahr, “Poetics Statement”; Joshua Clover, “No More Boffins”; Kevin Young, “Poetics Statement”; Stacy Doris, Conference, “A Month of Valentines”, Knot; Myung Mi Kim, “415”, “424”, “426”; Susan Wheeler, “The Debtor in the Convex Mirror”, “The Dogwood and the The”; Mark Nowak, “Poetics Statement”; Kenneth Goldsmith, Day; Edwin Torres, Poetry Project blog posts, posted 22 and 27 May 09]

Comments

[Bob]

I, too, have sunk my grabb on stank pot putty...