That
would be
nice if it
were
true. That
would be nice
if
it were
false. I read
somewhere
(Calvet’s biography?)
that Barthes ate
like
a wolf.
What is the
part
of all
your thinking and
all
your ways
of looking at
things
and doing
things that is
not
to a
decisive degree conditioned
and
codetermined by
the structure and
the
meaning of
your language, the
organization
of the
world it carries
with
it, your
first family environment,
all
the “do”s
and “don’t”s to
which
you have
been constantly exposed,
the
friends you
have, the opinions
in
circulation, the
ways forced on
you
by the
innumerable artifacts that
surround
you, and
so on? If
you
can in
all sincerity truly
answer,
“About 1
percent,” you are
certainly
the most
original thinker ever
to
have lived.
It is certainly
not
our merit
(or demerit) if
we
do not
“see” a nymph
inhabiting
every tree
or every fountain.
A
pair of
bright red shoes
lies
on the
sill. The other
window
is never
open, but frames
a
cactus in
an earthenware bowl.
Somewhere
in the
room is a
wooden
tomato. All
the Aliens stir
the
Tang. I’m
a stranger in
this
world. Seven
Jewish mystics sat
upon
a bench.
Suddenly they were
no
longer mystical.
A Haitian slave
is
inexpensive, and
easily available. (Did
you
know they
give dogs the
same
medication for
seizures as people?)
Answer
to question
from the audience:
The
salesman works
on commission and
he
needs to
get back to
the
business of
seizing neurons from
those
who dream
of being a
body
while the
body dreams of
having
a soul.
The televised voice
is
fluttering.
The dreamwork is
a
laugh a
minute. There’s a
riot
going on.
The eye, at
the
summit of
the skull, opening
onto
the sun
in order to
contemplate
it in
solitude, opens
and
blinds itself,
and thus it
plays
the role
of a fire
in
a house;
the head, instead
of
locking up
life as money
is
locked in
a safe, spends
it
without counting.
On her deathbed,
my
friend’s mother
hailed a taxi.
My
uncle said
his boat was
here,
and a
friend got ready
to
push her
empty grocery cart
down
the supermarket
aisle. Once, during
my
misspent days
in London, while
visiting
a friend
in a clinic,
I
saw a
rubber stamp on
the
admissions desk
reading “Psychosexual Problem.”
The
attendant turned
around and like
a
fool I
didn’t pick it
up
and glorify
my self. Yet
angels
perceive the
foliage of trees
as
roots drinking
from heaven. Some
clip
art looks
best in the
rain,
some rain
looks best in
situ.
Clip art
is both a
wave
and a
particle. Creation has
gone
terribly awry;
the divine sparks
have
broken through
their vessels and
plunged
into the
darkness of the
world;
the divine
sparks are absolutely
postcolonial.
The Essex
Street fish seller
plucked
up the
iced bright fish
by
the teeth
with two fingers
and
said: “White
fish.” This cap
is
a large
cap crocheted by
my
friend which
I try to
make
look like
it’s a rapper’s
hat
but really
it’s worn for
reasons
entirely like
spiritual. [Out of
desperation
and confusion,
he walketh upon
the
ground and
eateth the bitter
melon,
and [tho
he wears a
big
hat] he
refuseth to
build
a cocoon.]
Sing: I’ve sleeping
for
a book, —
serenely desert, and
I’m,
with the
sands in sleep,
the
sands, in
sleep, and in
sleep
I’m sand
with the sands
piled
upon my
breast, I’ll be
repeated
with each
wave — with each
long-
lulled read-
through * **
[[* = circled or boxed
** = crossed out with a diagonal]]
Again the text speech is written in a different style, one that is intended for direct public address, one that puts the words of the TEXT into the mouth of a designated, or presumed, speaker.
The
speaker’s like
an insane child
who's
been chased
from home by
the
entire family.
Where’s that bass??
My kingdom for one of those loudspeaker cars, rigged with bullhorns,
That I might drive it through Chicago, Dallas and D.C., its fat Bakelite
Microphone an apple in my trembling hand, bump ba bump bump
Hung
down Wrapped
up, pounded chimney
grip
Morning sky
along Somnolent sun
Not
against heavy
scaling Bitter elderberry
singing
Reeds away
Wounded deep again
Beating
dark doors
rattling leaf pile
Yellow
barn distant
Whine groping slow
Smothered
feet Splitting
red fog Blackbirds
scramble
For grub
fragrance. Bump ba
bump
bump What
I’m trying to
text
is unreduced
to its molecules,
dark
matter acronymically
textured into temperate
understanding.
Money talks,
dear, and the
silence
is deafening.
Or heartening. Or
But,
at some
point, wouldn’t it
serve
us to
consider other foundational
questions?
“unicorn hardcore
soft porn abortion
e-
cards” is
a rather succinct
and
accurate description
of contemporary consciousness
in
the developed
world in the
early
21st century,
an immersive media
environment
in which
we can “stay
warm
on a
cold night” of
the
“you anemone tentacle
look like a
chicken
pie” soul. . .
Crumbly 0000-
00-
00 00:00:00 ..,
while clicking away
links
after links
that “Ka kaaaawwwwwww
Ka
kaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwww” 1
Star 2 Stars
3
Stars 4
Stars 5 Stars ...
(5.00
out of
5); ... patty melts
and
corn dogs
and shrimp wiggle …
bloody
earlobes and
other appendages
litter
the aisle …..
the baby’s still
breathing ..
maybe .. standing
in for the
epidemic ...
in the
era of the
global
polka-dotted
lobster flu .. .. .. like
the
aging white
man of the
popular
saying … Still,
he worried about
…the
fact that
the goat had
…a
beard, and
he secretly consulted
…an
oracle in
a neighboring country,
…who
assured him
that only a
…bearded
spirit could
seriously threaten his
rule.
And if
you’re not well,
let’s
face it.
“Ka kaaaawwwwwww Ka
kaaaaaaaawwwwwwwwww”.
Up close
you look like
the
anemone’s tentacles.
ghastly talus
crusty vernal aluminate
locksmith repression
hereinbelow
zagging
zagging photography crystal
menopause zoo breakthrough
oxygen ophiuchus politic
and must thou, foundling, still forego lying back languidly
thou seest me the meanest thing, and so i am indeed;
and a dark desert all around.
[Note: Sources: Cornelius Castoriadis, “The Imaginary”, in World in Fragments (tr. David Ames Curtis); Tom Raworth, “The Vein”, in Earn Your Milk. From here it’s back to Critiphoria 1, with an occasional and. Kenneth Delfik, “Silas Touches a Stranger”, “The One-Inch Store Was Levelled”; Van Morrison, “Cyprus Avenue”; E Benjamin Skinner, A Crime So Monstrous: Face-To-Face With Modern-Day Slavery; Holly Delaney-Wade, “For me …”; Thom Donovan (quoting/paraphrasing Artaud?), “Vertov (On Obedience)”, “On Reading Walt Whitman’s ‘Song of Myself’ Again”; Georges Bataille, “The Pineal Eye”, as quoted in David Farrell Krell, Archeticture: Ecstasies of Space, Time, and the Human Body; Denise Duhamel, “Slippers”; Sheila E Murphy, “Quit joshing this near the manure”, as quoted in Thomas Fink, “Poetry Interrogating Itself: Sheila E Murphy’s The Case of the Lost Objective (Case)”; Alberto Pérez-Gómez, Polyphilo, as quoted in Farrell Krell; Edmond Jabès, Book of Shares, 31, as quoted in Norman Fischer, “Light(silence)word”; Ben Nicholson, as quoted in Farrell Krell; Alberto Pérez-Gómez, as quoted in Farrell Krell; Norman Fischer, “Light(silence)word”; Peter Hallward, Absolutely Postcolonial; Cliff Fyman, “I was keeping a journal …”; Drew Gardner, “Acceptance Letter”; I skipped Jenny Grassl; Jeff Harrison, “I practiced these sands, the freshest crowns”, “The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion”; Carla Harryman, “let no one represent you”; Niels Hav, “In Defense of Poets” (trs. P.K. Brask & Patrick Friesen); Jamey Hecht, “Nixon at Bosworth Field”; Mitch Highfill, “Residual Lexicon”; Jen Hofer & Dan Machlin, “ember”. Then, bits from a couple links posted today 26 Jun 09 by Ron Silliman: Allen Mozek, “Notes on Conceptualisms”, at For the Birds; Stan Apps (quoting Nada Gordon, K Silem Mohammad), “Review of Poetry Magazine, July/August 2009 (Part 1)”, at Freewill Applicator; & then a lil ol google search on the K Silem Mohammad phrase, the results of which include a bit from Ngugi Wa Thiongo’s great Wizard of the Crow; finally, bits from spam emails rec’d Fri 26 Jun 09. Also: Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding; the polka-dotted lobster’s an ekphrastic bit relating to a work by Jeff Koons]
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