Zeitgeist Spam

FCF 90

This is to appear / may very well by now have appeared elsewhere. Removed per publisher's request.

FCF 89

He
travels to
the nest of

perfect
images, to
talk there, to

haggle
there, to
plead there, with

the
gods who
rule the fate

of
the world.
And a door

is
there &
a door without

a
room. And
to be buried

was
to be
a tree hung

with
winged sexes
and reptile tails.

And
those with
winged sexes cut

their
hair military
style and forgot

the
homes they
came from. And

I
am a,
I am a,

I
am a,
I am a,

I
am a,
I am a,

and
I want
bread and half

a
crate of
soda pop. Ay,

ay,
ay! the
thief will cry

out.
There’s nothing
to be done.

That’ll
be fifty
pesos, and a

kilo
of incense.
I am cold,

always
on the
point of shivering.

3
x 2
= 6 too

many.
Send me
customers, with lots

of
cash. And
leaving the coast

for
a time,
we again enter

the
forest. And
I bring you

smoke,
I offer
you flowers. I

don’t
want to
go to Los

Angeles.
I don’t
want to work

in
Florida.
On the basis

of
preliminary studies,
we expect to

identify
several thousand
sites of structural

variation. “Sellin' that?”

“Nah.”

“Why’s it on the suitcase?”

“Well, I was gonna let it out so it could go to the bathroom, but --”

“It’s Tony the Carnivorous Pony!”

His friend laughs.

“Oh yeah,” he continues.

“Look at that!” says the girlfriend.

“Synchronized sleeping,” I say.

“You know, if that happened to all the fingers, it’d cause a wave.”

“And then he’d drop the sandwich.”

“Don’t we have things to do?” I ask.

“Sure,” says one. “Like going to a parking lot.”

The Americans who fell in Normandy in 1944 were tall men measuring 173 centimeters on average, and if they were laid head to foot they would measure 38 kilometers. The Germans were tall too, while the tallest of all were the Senegalese fusiliers in the First World War who measured 176 centimeters, and so they were sent into battle on the front lines in order to scare the Germans. Tutsis died at 5x the rate of Jews during the Holocaust

t      r     a     c     e      s      ,                h      i      e      r      o      g      l      y     p      h      s
i      n     s     c      r     i     b     e      d           o     n           t      h     e
c      r     e      v      i      c     e     s            o      f            a           c     o      n      c     h      ,
p      o     e     m            c      h      i     s     e      l      e      d
o      n           b      a      r     n      a     c      l      e      s      ,           a

small
animal came
into my room;

its
surface was
damp and stained

like
a stone
covered with moss.

It
approached the
edge of my

bed
making the
same noise jaws

make
as they
chew a bone.

I
closed my
eyes as saw

it
within me.
I saw the

second
heart. The
end sequences of

each
clone are
mapped to the

reference
sequence, [insert
quote from Egyptian

Book
of the
Dead], heart, the

red
pump, all
artery, chamber, the

palms
and wrists
indented with the

shapes
of [insert
noun] the inner

thighs
so sweet,
their little white

marks
[insert we
breathe the same

air
as the
Ancient Greeks, we

breathe
the same
air as a

billion
year old
bee beard, we

breathe
the same
air as every

single
one of
dasein's dancing freaks].*

*“The body's a
            prison or a
                    god. There's no
                            in-between.” “Jean-
                                    Luc, you’re joking
                                            me!” All there

is
is the
“in-between”. What

diff
re: whether
there’s a there

[t]here? ·
(       ) (       )
it singing on?

Since
long ago
grace-giving Phoebus

died,.
And all
the train that

loved
the stream-
bright side … · (       )

(       )
it to
repeat How time

is
slipping underneath
our Feet. Unborn

To-
morrow, and
dead yesterday Why

fret
about them
if today be

sweet …
Screaming, with
flapping hands, and

flying
hair, Scatheless
he fled, and

passed
without a
bruise ; While I —

what
boots it
with … … …

it,
what does
it amount to?

With
,every.day of

lir.
conviction .has grown

Verb
conjugator Reverso :

an
inflatable house
of silver. The

ocean
goes to
sleep inside me.

ssssssssssssssssssssssss.
Box for
the dead. Utiwwwwww,

tu
tu tukuuuuuuuurrr,
sotz’, sotz’, sotz’ …

no
es que
las piedras sean

mudas: /
solo guardan
silencio is the

whole
poem, the
whole poem, the

name
of the
beginning was ‘Only

More
So’. But
after the diamond

skull,
he said
he thought we

should
do another
interview. “Look

for
a new
because the old

one
is dis.”
Something’s stopp           The

day
is too
clear to see

what’s
happening. I
do not claim

cryptonesia,
I do
not claim, though

I like, “my”
lyricism, because it

generates
an I
(an other) in

my
body who
sinks down on

the
bed behind
the glass, slowly,

and
opens the
windows so the

day’s
only low
cloud enters with

the
glare. A
deity lurks behind

my
ear. Nibble
nibble. Soft Lotions.

Myelin.
Killer app.
To edit memory,

simply
enter the
new value of

memory
into the
cell and press

the
‘enter’ key.
Give me your

twitching
solitude – it
falls like an

old
teat –

[Note: Sources: the 2nd in a series utilizing The Oxford Book of Latin American Poetry (Edited by Cecilia Vicuña and Ernesto Livon-Grosman), Touching the Fire: Fifteen Poets of Today’s Latino Renaissance (ed. Ray González) (this time I work both from the end back), and the eternal and, of course. Thanks again to Ron Silliman, for his set of links posted 23 Jul 09. For Tom Beckett, because the guy asks me questions I have no idea how to answer.

Juan Gregoria Regino, “Cantares” (tr. Eliot Weinberger); Christian Hawkey, “While You Were Out”, as quoted by Ron Silliman, 24 Jul 09; Cristina Rivera-Garza, Third World (tr. Jen Hofer); Tonik Nibak, “Dance of the Perfumed Woman” (tr. Ámbar Past); Maria Ernándes Kokov, “The Talking Box Speaks” (tr. Ámbar Past); Gloria Vando, “Ode To Your Back”, “Lydia’s Phantasmagoria” (in González); Loxa Jiménes Lópes, “Pexi Cola Magic”, (tr. Ámbar Past); Tony Lopez, Darwin; Xunka’ Utz’utz’ Ni’, “Prayer So My Man Won’t Have to Cross the Line” (tr. Ámbar Past); EF, “The Emergency Story Telling Kit”, at Blog Made For the Purposes of One Post; Patrik Ouředník, Europeana (tr. Gerald Turner); L R Melvern, A People Betrayed: The role of the West in Rwanda’s genocide; Josely Vianna Baptista, “Traces” (tr. Odile Cisneros); Myriam Moscona, Black Ivory (tr. Jen Hofer); Valerie Martinez, “Night of Fathers” (in González); Tom Beckett, untitled blog post at Slim Windows, 24 Jul 09; result of cutnpaste from 1st results screen of a google search on “what boots it”; Elikura Chihuailaf, “For I Am the Power of the Nameless” (tr. John Bierhorst); Humberto Ak’abal, “Buzzard” (tr. Dennis Tedlock), “Walker” (trs. Sylvia and Earl Shorris), “Piedras”; Damien Hirst, as quoted in an interview by Jessica Lack, “Damien Hirst: ‘Gordon Burn gave me hell’”, at Guardian.co.uk; Jorge Santiago Perednik, “Shock of the Lenders” (tr. Molly Weigel); Russ Juskalin, “You Didn’t Plagiarize, Your Unconscious Did”, at Newsweek, 7 Jul 09; Reina María Rodríguez, “Twilight’s Idol” (trs. Kristin Dykstra and Nance Gates-Madsen); Emeterrio Cerro, “Miss Murkiness” (tr. Kathryn A Kopple); Elvira Hernández, “The Flag of Chile” (tr. Daniel Shapiro); Coral Bracho, “Give Me Earth, Your Night” (tr. Forrest Gander)]

FCF 88

… All
of this
comes to pass

with
us. Red
are the waters.

We
have eaten
sticks of firewood.

The
houses are
roofless. I call

to
my hearts.
Your pitcher is

broken.
Bless this
day, thou roads

and
paths. Memories,
I am told,

are
never real.
Heat settles like

a
simile on
my forehead. We

sit
among the
white mariposas, optical

double
stars. We
have run home

to
be naked.
……………………………………

shining
weather’s happiness.
……………………………………

fate
annuls all
favors granted. “We

have lived together longer / in the discontinuous films of my sleep / than” this delicate what which is full of anxiety rattling through the corn in a single wave, so that sex, agriculture, commodification and choice become - as they are - entangled with each another.

(the
good godofmyfathers
rolls himself a

fat
cigar, enjoys
a smoke and

falls
in bed,
dreaming of lasso

legs)
The “Cover
Letter” reads: Enclosed

please
find/ my
distinctively postmodern / bourgeois

notions,
within which /
I trace the

dot
dot dot /
dot positing itself

at
the center
of identity, / exclusionary

and
logocentric / dot
dot dot dot

even
as they
elaborate systems / of

domination
from beginning
to end / in

a
rather bizarre
truncate dotdot dot

to
pique your /
interest in mestizaje.

Tempo
builds up
slowly half an

hour:
“Y, y,
y etc” in

the
tone of
It’s down It’s

up.
Has the
money left its

sickbed?
Speak lips,
opening on a

cul-
de-sac,
a slice of

nothing
hunger lovely
in the quartz

and sand, “Low ride among ruins / Something has us by / the nose” tumba la-lá-la tumba la-léy-ley, a kind of electricity of which simple narrative is not capable. shh”) I don’t

recognize
the place
names. Or I

do,
but they
come from televised

wars.
This is
the time when

the
bird, the
prophecy, shall be

composed.
What sick
rainbow is this,

stealing
in? Aufklärung’s
a ring of

bone
where ring
is what a

bell
does. Cultural
ritual is artifice

composed
of simultaneous
chrono-vectors. GESTURES

are
a SKETCH. In
Sum … Thick

mist
misting down
amasses darkness. The

roaring
river’s soaring.
The soaring river’s

roaring.
Want to
control which emails

you
receive from
Facebook?

[Note: Sources: “America has a deeply confused image of itself that is in perpetual tension. We are a nation that takes pride in our ethnic diversity, recognizing its importance in shaping our society and in adding richness to its existence. Yet, we simultaneously insist that we can and must function and live in a race and color-blind way that ignores these very differences that in other contexts we laud. Many of us struggle with this tension and attempt to maintain and promote our cultural and ethnic identities in a society that is often ambivalent about how to deal with its differences.” In honor of Judge Sotomayor’s willingness to make such statements in public, the next several sections of FCF will be constructed from samples taken in chronological order from the new Oxford Book of Latin American Poetry (Edited by Cecilia Vicuña and Ernesto Livon Grosman) as well as samples from Touching the Fire: Fifteen Poets of Today’s Latino Renaissance (ed. Ray González) [anthologies chosen because they happen to be in my personal library]. And from the eternal and, of course (which, today, consists of bits accessible via Ron Silliman’s 17 Jul 09 links list). For Ernesto Priego, who brought Sotomayor’s quote to my attention. Note: I have no idea whether S’ll be a justice I’ll admire. I wouldn’t bet on it. A man I know said recently (we were talking about what a neoliberal disappointment Obama is turning out to be (yes yes, he’s an improvement on Bush, but that’s not really saying much, is it?)), “Don’t expect too much from American politics.” I was tempted to reply, “Don’t expect anything.” Nevertheless … she did say something honest …

Anonymous (Sixteenth Century, Mexico, Aztec Nahuatl), “And All Was Destroyed” (tr. David Guss); Anonymous (Sixteenth Century, Mexico, Aztec Nahuatl), Codex Cantares Mexicanos XLIV-B-Folio 27-27B: “Just Thus It Will Come Back In” (tr. John Bierhorst); Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, “Beautiful Maiden” (trs. Rosa Alcalá with Cecilia Vicuña); Anonymous (Sixteenth Century, Mesoamerica, Maya K’iche), Popul Vuh: “And This Is the Cry Of their Hearts, Here It Is” (tr. Dennis Tedlock); Sandra M Castillo, “Almendares”, “Primos”, “Monday Night at Pedro’s”, “The Contra”; Alonso de Ercilla y Zuniga, The Araucaniad (trs. Charles Maxwell Lancaster and Paul Thomas Manchester); Ruth Stone, and Frances Leviston, in Leviston’s review of Stone’s What Love Comes To: New & Selected Poems, at Guardian.co.uk; Mateo Rosas de Oquendo, “The Mestizo’s Ballade” (tr. G J Racz); David Bromige, “3 Ways with the Same Sentence”, as quoted in Ed Coletti, “David Bromige 1933-2009”, at (Ed Coletti’s) No Money In Poetry, 15 Jul 09; Felipe Guaman Pomo de Ayala, “Cachiuia”, “Festival of the Inca” (trs. Simon Pettet with Cecilia Vicuña); Geoffrey Young, “Cover Letter”, as quoted in Terence Winch, “Geoff Young: Style, Insight, and Durability”, at Best American Poetry, 9 Jul 09; Gregório de Matos, “An Anatomy of the Ailments Suffered by the Body of the Republic, In All Its Members, and Complete Definition of What Has Ever Been the City of Bahia” (tr. Mark A Lokensgard); Lorna Dee Cervantes, “The Poet Is Served Her Papers”, “The Levee: Letter to No One”, “Starfish”; Nathaniel Mackey, “Eye on the Scarecrow”, as quoted in Robin Tremblay-McGraw, “More Ships: Moriarty and Mackey”, at X Poetics; Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, “Villancico VIII-Ensaladilla” (trs. Jerome Rothenberg and Cecilia Vicuña); Aaron Belz, reviewing American Hybrid (eds. Cole Swensen and David St John), Etel Adnan, and Rae Armantrout, as quoted therein, at Comment: equipping and connecting the next generation of Christian leaders; Anonymous (Eighteenth Century, Mesoamerica, Maya), The Book of Chilam Balam of Mani: “The Cuceb Seventh Year” (tr. John Bierhorst); Simón Rodríguez, “Social Virtues and Illuminations” (tr. Mónica de la Torre); Lew Welch, “Ring of Bone” (from memory); Albert Goldbarth, “If We Were Honest”, as quoted in Eric Andersen, “Poetry from the heart of space”, at The Daily Iowan, 10 Jul 09; Anonymous (Seventeenth-Eighteenth Century? Peru), “Atahualpa Death Prayer” (tr. James Scully)]

FCF 87

For
instance: A
word of a

single
vowel could
become a circle

Two
vowels, a
rectangle     Three vowels,

a
triangle      Four
vowels, a square

Five
vowels, a
five-point star

Six
vowels, a
six-point star

and
so on…
Our noiseless angles

go
bent. We
eat our soup

at
a table
scattered with dead

ladybugs.
I can’t write
doorknob, or cell

phone,
without making
it sound as

if
I’m looking
for a church.

Cruise ships are delusional. Not the passengers, the ships themselves. This lambkin is sheared and encased in ice. The ice is encased in plexiglass. A bunch of wires … little grayish floaters in my visual field. But I would like to neglect such issues. I murder people for money, don’t you think?? “We” have surpassed post-modernism, leaving it behind, while embracing a new world philosophy, called ‘Fish Fry’, which is much more beneficial, in terms of the common chemistry of things coming apart--

you
know, that
friendly, social warmth,

the
toilet backed
up because it

had
to. Hold
out your hand.

Now
tighten the
muscles in your

forearm –
not a
lot, just enough

to
be aware
that it’s tensed.

Hold
it. Permanently.
You don’t notice

it
for a
while and then,

it
becomes just
an ache. After

a
couple of
days, it’s sore

and
after a
week or two,

it’s
not a
light tensing anymore,

it’s
a clench
and it lets

you
know all
the time how

much
it hurts.
And it travels.

It
starts to
ripple to the

rest
of you,
giving you jolts

of
electricity flashing
like lightning through

random
muscles: pain
that is almost

exquisite
in its
clarity and tone. Version:1.0 Start:Yes End:No Start:Yes End:No Start:Yes:Runendless: scale234 5full-fledged hellhound I
began this bit

with
“Hold
out your hand.

Now
tighten the
muscles in your

forearm –
not a
lot, just enough

to
be aware
that it’s tensed.

Hold
it. Permanently.”
As if the

tensing
had ever
been optional. “In

reality, didn’t we fall by the wayside
in order to save God
from the trouble of saving people?”

No,
but I
know why you

think
so. I
was born in

a
year ending
0 or 1

so
I read
“Metal” -helps water but hinders wood; helped by earth but hindered by fire

he used to be totally dull-colored
because he came from the earth’s inside
now he has become a super-conductor
for cold words, hot pictures and light itself
       all being transmitted through his throat

one
large bruise
four inches below

right
knee inflicted
by old growth

stump
of western
red cedar, skat

pellets
the size
of Atomic Fireballs.

Right
about now
you must be

thinking,
“Is her
life an effin’

telenovela?
What do
you mean, Oh

Busy
Abogado, that
you have time

to
go down
to the garden

to
hack up
the rhubarb?!!!!”

my
mother, smiling
euphorically, smoothed the

aluminum
foil over
the pillow. When

it
rained, hours
into our long

journey
to America,
I saw citron-

yellow
flashes. I
reached my little

hand
out further
into the environment.

First
thing today,
she shot up dye,

he
had his
blood drawn. The

animals
in this
village will have

no
dreams. She
believes her word-

bearing
matrix lies
in her underbelly.

What
I could
see of her

was
wrapped in
steam. What is

your
itinerary? How
long are you

staying?
The old
myths are wrestling

with
the new
myths, the new

myths
are mud
wrestling with surfers,

yogis,
and cyborgs.
The creamy nymphs

are
singing: Tra
la la.          Hee

hee,
ha ha
ha’s whirl like

microscopic
jewels ‘round
“algorithmic suburbs”. No

need
much for
words, whistling maybe,

or
whistling along,
it’s either

Aim
Straight and
Press Vaporize, or

what would happen if I just snipped
the sides of this enclosure? If I just refused

to cook myself today? No matter how doughy,
I know there’s blood inside.

[Note: Sources: I start with Drunken Boat 10, 4 sections, jumping around from section to section according to a “loose associational logic” (Robert Kelly), taking two items from one section, then two from another, etc. I intersperse bits taken from authors at Ron Silliman’s 13 Jul 09 Recently Arrived list, attempting if possible to intersperse between Drunken Boat sections. The 1st of a series? I begin with mis/Translations, taken in reverse order. George Orrimbe, “Vocalo-coloriste Portraiture”; Michel Clavel “Traduction Homographique (Français / Anglais)”. Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno, “Ladybugs”, at Alice James Books (Silliman); Over to Poetics, again in reverse order. Corey Zeller, “Dissolving Over Steel Railings, Un-Drawn Windows, the Language below Bridges, in Advent”; Joseph Woods, “Mobile, Late April”. Juliet Cook, “Sieve”, “Ghost Teeth”, Letizia Merello, self-description, at Turntable & Blue Light (Silliman). On to Greatest Hits, starting with issue 1. Jennifer Coates, “Consistency”; Patrick Donnelly, “Dust”. Cheryl Dumesnil, “Don’t Ask Me”, at The Cortland Review. Lene Anderson, “Like Glass” (a description of fibromyalgia pain K sent me, to give me a sense of what she lives with every day). On to Arts in Asia, reverse order again: Can Yücel, “Poem Forty-Four” (tr. Talât Sait Halman); Changming Yuan, “Chinese Chimes: Science or Superstition: The Ancient Theory of the Five Elements Accounts for Us All”. Alison Hawthorne Deming, “SPECIMENS COLLECTED AT THE CLEAR CUT”, from “The Andrews Forest Quartet”, at Alison Hawthorne Deming.com (Silliman). From here on I intersperse 6 bits from Eileen Tabios’ new arrivals list, 11 Jul 09, “He Hacked Up the Rhubarb!...?...!”. 8 Drunken Boat bits plus 6 Chatelaine new arrival bits = a sonnet. Well, that was the plan … Eileen Tabios; David Buuck, Ruts; Bhanu Kapil, “19. SOFT CRAZINESS: VISUAL MEMORIES, POST-OP”, at J’s Theater; Sasha Steensen, “Wintery Weather and Job Slaughter”, at Starting Today: poems for the first 100 days; Eric Baus, “A Scared Text”, “The Tranquilized Tongue”, at Fascicle 1; Filip Marinovich, “Honorable One”, at Eoagh 3; blurb for Elizabeth Marie Young, Aim Straight and Press Vaporize, and Young herself, as quoted by Ange Mlinko, “Two Chapbooks”, at Harriet; Keith Tuma, “’till mute attention Struck my listning Ear”, at Jacket 26]

FCF 86

pli
selon pli
all the way

to
the horizon …
far/slash/not-

so-
far, surf’s
up, no respect

for
persons …
the sound of

many
atoms the
color of drums …

the
sun which
goes crazy instead

of
down … a
dictionary arranged not

alphabetically
but from
heaven to earth …

from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 63 / on styroform floatation devices /
foaming frothy and bombastic? / slang in /
neon wild / Lou Reed /
blue note brass frog burps /

many of you have read vasari’s lives of the artists           it is a very funny and loveable book          and in it          three times he tells a story          there is a          road and a child sitting by the roadside drawing on a stone           and each time it happens that a famous man           some great artist is traveling on this road          well he passes by the little boy and by chance observes what the child is drawing          it happens to be a perfect circle          a tête d’otage           two eyes

in
each eye.
A nose. A

mouth.

1.

The wind blows your hat off

And your head off, too

2.

Sometimes I’m a being who sleeps

And sometimes someone having a conversation with someone

3.

We have been washed by the primary substance

It has fallen onto our war

4.

Here people are accustomed to the laughter that begins at dawn

The intricate ways of which are just like fear, that natural phenomenon

5.

Doesn’t this piss you off

This numb drop that slowly bleeds like the hole in my cheek or the stone that holds up the world?

6.

The shadow whip-cracks the entire town

“Ask an obvious question, get any obvious answer” or so the saying says, or so the saying does

7.

The midnight sun is larger than the bridge

That is large enough to carry astonishment across an abyss

8.

The sea erases

The letter appears

9.

The crowd exterminated in the doorways still wants to know what we want to know

Demands that we come down and talk

10.

I put my warm ear to the brokenness, an echo rises

I hold my money out to the man with the knife

11.

You nail yourself to the earth with a nail's compassion

To stop believing in reality. To begin believing in it

A green
sky behind my

head.
(       ). (       ).
The centre of

town
awakes lentement.
Les cars which

cross
the streets
at speed show

that
people still
live by fear

of
the bombardments.
But all is

held
as if
the war were

a
history that
we were told

when
we were
children. A green

sky
to match
my green glasses.

Anyone,
she said,
had become her

favorite
pronoun. That
was how I

remembered
it. How
a senseless rock

suddenly
had eyes,
the stupid world

looking
at you,
it made a

claim,
had the
prior claim, had

been
there longer,
was not anything

like
you, except
in the eyes,

so
long boys,
it said, I’m

on
my way
to California. The

molten
metal cooled
and was beaten

into
brittle rattles,
while the little

children
prattled to
the kitten and

the
rattlesnake battled
with a turtle.

O
onion, you
make us cry

sin
afligornos.
You are clear

as
a planet
and destined to

shine.
I don’t
think it can’t.

Seven
seven seven.
I don’t think

it
can’t. Seven
seven seven. Seven

seven
seven. We’re
only in love’s

straits /
All hope
we’ll get thru

this
with exactitude
and dignity, we

don’t,
but with
bravery we shuttle,

and return. Next day take the oak leaf from the book and bite a chunk off and keep it in your mouth. Find a recording of wolves howling from natural recordings, or even a recording you made yourself of friends howling. But if you make the recording, direct your friends to a Rallying Howl, then a Defensive Howl; let them decide what that means. Listen to the recording on headphones and go outside chewing your leaf, keeping the book on you, in a bag, under your arm, between your ass cheeks, it’s up to you. Walk where there are people, walk where you can find THE MOST people. Keep chewing with the howling while studying faces and arms, studying how they move with one another, move around one another. Take notes, take as many notes as you can. When you’re tired of chewing your leaf move it between your teeth and gums, but don’t spit, swallow, don’t spit. Remember that this leaf has been soaked in the book while you were dreaming. This isn’t about appropriating text, it's about text absorption:

a
bottle of
warping formula.

Lift
the hazard.
Tune down by

fifths.
Lucretius warns:
‘Better the swan’s

brief
song than
the cry of

cranes /
Spread by
the south wind

through
the clouds
on high,’ (twice),

so
that any
return to what

you
thought was
home has already,

well,

_____________________________ (try saying that out loud)

opening any small orifice or enclosure of the self – be it ear or mouth or tightly clenched fist, asshole,

In sweetness
In solitude
The peace of chaff
A spice
Fetching potential

To ascertain
Of death
Wasting against a
      batch

In bliss
To grow

A right of orchards
At a sudden color

What are we to make of this window, banners, discourses, men, the waking
           ears, like immortal fields?
What are we to make of this drawer, like a round angel?
What are we to make of this face, ticked as fear?

Must we be a record?
May we be a cup?
Must we be a great line of poetry?
(“Everything in the world to do. I must be lying already. And the sacred is
           sacred.”)

Is this red then, this celestial strife?
Is that wilderness then, that amber hurry?
Is that air then, that young old old?

What did our hair do until it picked us?
What did our throat do before it heard us?

What did our hand do until it suited us?
What did our rib do before it defeated us?
What did our finger do before it heard us?
What did our face do until it thought us?

What are we to make of this brow, newer than a winter?
What are we to make of this verb, astonished as a friend?
What are we to make of this ecstasy, our arms simple with news?
What are we to make of this bough, newer than an ecstasy?

When I say “bless” I mean a cat blesses the shaft of light that enters a room by sleeping in it.

Passing near the black hole
in a civil war ahead of the traffic
“hiding jokes in mud bricks” and “listening watching waiting”
I would be eight people with the rib-cage of an elephant.

Stick a tester in it.
Is it ready?

A?
B?
C?
D?
E?
F?
G?
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

The passive ornate—of temperature—is half-stone—is delta—tone measure—of
crystal—ruby lost—a toilet mechanism—sounds like—whistle—or
where
to just reside—

The passage is wide
open
to the solar
system.

It’s vowel time now and
the jury sweeps by in a cause and effect maneuver –
imagine all the filth of time
the bones that have been crushed in machines by machines or become
machines …

Cupids and Bacchus
           Have given me carpet burns …

Someone was silent, and we wonder whose voice it had been.
              A. indefinite / relative / relative
              B. indefinite / personal / personal
              C. definite / personal / personal
              D. indefinite / personal / personal …

… the UN Convention against Torture and the US revisions of and exceptions to that convention, a dictionary of non-lethal weapons terms and references, the report reviewing Department of Defense detention operations, technical works on game theory and strategy, declassified White House memos, transcripts from animated video games, Emily Dickinson’s poem “Split the lark,” the song “The Big Rock Candy Mountains,” and Louis Zukofsky’s “A” …

icons
& the toxic halos
licked
all over like a stamp, my every garbage at
the actual border,
making it, making it over, taking up the slack.

The bottle broke in your bag & you're
getting flammable, very flammable.

No special name.

            Your name here.

wwww lllluuu kkkhhhaaa.

An equivalent stretch of sand
or an equivalent stretch of sand
a definition of sand
the hair on your balls or if you’re too busy for balls
the tears like elves

Shiva Elijah Delphi achara Bruna leche flan Lama Vegas tidal volta destitute Alma then to write, in chalk, the final result, on the slate flagstones of the park,

Faint carvings base the moon, moonfaced seashell, cottontail, wind. loose pyjama
ship’sprow, little empire, little amusement drawer, the no-it’s-not banquet, the
carousel’spull. no, we are not accidents
of long ago, the tongues made
of tiny little tongues, call monsters to the walls.

When you sleep you miss / the courtesy service dream
where there was first aid
but no Inspector, an

Out of Office AutoReply: If you drop the weapon maybe. --------- -------------------. A

look on the child’s face as if running through a trashy jungle with her tiny broken penis out. That’s

true, you could hang your hat on the wind, and when you opened your mouth it was like True or false: I LIKED THOSE PEOPLE, EVEN THE MOST HATEFUL AMONG THEM. This

is not the “Oh!” of Eureka! but the “O” of a

vocative.                                         But the thing

that worries me most

                                             is that even in this neighborhood

if you wave to someone

                                                       they don’t wave back

                                                                                           …

What are they thinking?

                                                         Are they scared?

                                                                                                 Scared of

waving people? An

acre of soil might contain 130 pounds each of algae and protozoa, 890 lbs. of insects, nearly 900 pounds of earthworms and about 2,000 pounds each of bacteria and fungi as well as … mega processes … the soil is charged I say, with iron, so you might have tasted its slightly bloody meat flavor. ‘Thought

is in the mouth’ wrote Tristan Tzara. There’s Leonardo’s dream, one he dreamt when an infant and recorded in his notebooks and which is recounted by Freud in his ‘psychobiography’ of the artist. A bird – a kite – flies in through the window, into the bedroom where he Leonardo sleeping, and it thrusts its tail into his mouth. Otherness of ‘I’, sky bursting in on him through the medium of this bird. Is this consciousness, as if it were something out there? Flight bursts into a room and is trapped here. Leonardo’s dream – you could interpret it as something exciting; mouth-flights, flights

of, flights of, flights of, flights of, prayers that leave tears in their objects of devotion, loosening, overlapping, frbrloping [huh?] an intimate proximity other

than. The same thing applies to the other who enlightens us, notably through desire, as is the case for the

sun, the “forming

blank”: if you want to know what you look like stick your face in the blind mirror and feel the mirror with your

face. Is there water in water? “Once you try to embrace an absolute geometric circle the naked loss stays with you like a picture echoing.” Here’s

a “funny story”: When I was alive I would type like this     the three fingers of the right hand

and the two of the left     or hold a pear     thus     or

take the skin off a cucumber with a device in the right hand and the pleasure

of the [illegible]

flesh             “what feeds me to ashes”              “it’s a little scraped up and it has a lot of”              the tree collects moisture in this case rain sweat blood urine stinging eyes open she------random not random from the closest

[…]

------of an age to------
opening eyes------from

[…]

fur yanked off

But how might one consider

these works? I want to

begin with the photograph opposite.

On the left a torn

scrap of orange foam sits

upon a slanted strip of

wood, a smoking cigarette at

its end, the wood lying

across the cut upturned base

of a plastic bottle (that

was previously used to store

paintbrushes, it would seem) which

in turn is angled upon

the shaft of a hammer

the metal head now acting

like a pair of splayed

feet. In the middle a

russet pear has been placed

upside down in the neck

of a cardboard tube, a

bottle-top for its crown,

while rusted metal tubing sweeps

down, a strip of wire

hooked to its end, across

which is stretched a paint-

stained yellow rubber glove. To

the right, the metal tube

rests on the toe of

a dusty blue shoe that

stands back on its heel,

another lit cigarette here held

nonchalantly in its laces, as

if on a bottom lip

in consequence, of affinity, through proximity

one November I began to glow. Blank space peopled with empty shapes

gold pailletes of stars to die for

“lyric valuables” shot thru with the square hole of [I don’t know] in the center of each video still

“ … bite your own teeth … ”

glimmer of oh

_____________________________ (try saying that out loud)

opening any small orifice or enclosure of the self – be it ear or mouth or tightly clenched fist, asshole.

OK. in consequence, of affinity, through proximity

one November I began to glow. Blank space peopled with empty shapes

gold pailletes of stars to die for

“lyric valuables” shot thru with the square hole of [I don’t know] in the center of each video still

“ … bite your own teeth … ”

glimmer of oh …

between
roses and
shadows … the same

story
the crow
told me … the

only one I know …

pli
selon pli …
fold upon fold …

[Note: Two of the inserted bits from Autopoiesis (XXXV, 2.11) are for Jen Hofer. Sources: Harry Gilonis, “mountain divide”, “fragrant temples”, “chinese sonnet”, in The Reality Street Book of Sonnets (ed. Jeff Hilson); Rosmarie Waldrop, “Steps in Integration”, “Evening Sun”, in American Hybrid (eds. Cole Swensen and David St John); anonymous, “An Anecdoted Topography Of [Eleni Sikelianos’] The California Poem”, at onedit; anonymous, “On Ryan Gallagher’s Plum Smash and Other Flashbulbs”, at onedit; David Antin, “remembering [/] recording [/] representing”, in talking at the boundaries; JBR, “Otages (Coda)”, in Otages; JBR, “Autopoiesis XXXV”; Beverly Dahlen, A Reading, “Two”, “Five”; Lyn Hejinian, My Life in the Nineties; Pablo Neruda, “Ode to the Onion” (tr unknown); Geof Huth, “And Water for Thirst”, 49 Pentecosts, n. 7, in Visual [/] Verbal [/] Vocal; Bernadette Mayer, “To Admiral Scott About Space”, in Scarlet Tanager; CA Conrad, “(Somatic) Poetry Exercises TWO: Oakenwolf”, at mark(s); Elizabeth Robinson, “As Betokening”, in Harrow; Robert Sheppard, The Anti-Orpheus: a notebook; Jean Vengua, “Home”, in Prau; JBR, Autopoiesis 2.7, 2.9, 2.10, 2.11, Cy Twombly: Cycles and Seasons (ed. Nicholas Serota); Grateful Dead, “Uncle John’s Band”]

Why I Love LA

From an AP story on Yahoo brought to my attention by Omo Bob: "The [Jackson] family was expected to hold a private funeral at some point at Forest Lawn Cemetery Los Angeles. No public funeral procession through city streets was scheduled, and it was not known whether Jackson's body would be at the Staples Center memorial. In a symbolic convergence of events, however, the circus will be there. Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey starts a run at Staples Center on Wednesday. In the predawn hours before Jackson's memorial, the elephants will walk from the train station to the arena."

FCF 85

Which
is to
hold out in

the
spilled entrails.
The sun pummels

the
River God.*                            *God is the name not the god of the river.
No, it sucks

at
it. It
sucks its head.

It
bangs the
body. The tongue

in
your throat,
you find, is

not
your own,
just a copy,

that’s
a really
funny joke, blown

like
dampness from
my little room.

Solar
systems, as
bound objects, are

never
fully available.
In astronomy, that

black
drapery of
the stars, deep

in
the curve
of my heart,

as
if the
sea weren’t underneath.

I
do the
math for fresh

water.
Spirals are
for pleasure. In

the
cult of
what would happen

if
we had
choices, would we

know
it? Now
let’s draw some

circles
big ones
small         overlappin            til

I
get pretty
damn lost. Je

suis
né comme
le rocher, avec

la
respiration aggressive.
I was born

like
the rock,
with my wounds.

From
birth I
have had an

aggressive
breathing. My
nervous breakdown is

immensely
boring. You
are the one

I
want beside
me in the

vehicle,
our hands
on each other’s

knees,
shouting our
heads off to

the
music recorded
on this obsolete

medium.
I want
to think more

(way
more) like
X X who

moved
outside his
preandproscribed canvas out

of
necessity, tho
I don’t even

know
what necessity
means. His focus

just
went past
the corners. X

X
sat there
for a very

long
time. Sitting
for a long

time
doesn’t appeal,
either, whelping stars

gentle
chains wind-
blown plastic scraps,

baroque
confusions, underlining
the star-lit

crates,
escaping into
skunk huts, broken …

The
point enters
spilling its message.

Is
this a
case of “the

foal
not shying
from the hand

that
gelded it”?
Suddenly I understand

why
they left
the empty bowls

on
the table,
in the empty

hut
overlooking the
sea. Suddenly I

understand
why they
left the empty

sea
on the
table, in the

empty
bowls overlooking
the table. Suddenly

I
understand why
they left the

empty
hut on
the table,

in
the empty
sea overlooking the

bowls.
Suddenly I
understand why they

left
the empty
sea on the

sea,
in the
sea overlooking the

sea. Suddenly
circa 1960
something about the

future
makes the
past go — no! —

Disinterring utopian scenes like this one, it all contracts a rather brackish taste I’ve grown to love. We were unwinding into looting the blank debris our forms so endlessly fulfill, nursing on spectacular slaughter. But it didn’t take long before we emerged, together again, from a hole blast thru the audio feed,

folded into yourself
how hard you are working on sleeping

folded into myself
how hard I am working on sleeping

folded into ourselves
how hard we are working on sleeping

·                        “What am I

· doing in this abstraction as if

· it were my experience

· and I were just an activity

· of time trying to make itself clear?”

Inside
of grace
the number of

my
friends increased
and joy wove

stories
of impossible
loves. Inside of

grace
the poor
tormented the rich

and
the hat
was lifted in

an
act of
pure gratitude. Inside

of
grace the
passing bird shat

on
the furniture.
Inside of grace

the
plane passed
over Albuquerque and

tho
they’d served
the meal and

shown
the film
there were still

two
hours to
go. My wings

are
yes and
a half meters

wide.
I’m sexual.
They cut my

flesh
aggressively. From
Persia I march

to
India and
back. I lean

on
my elbows
on warm stones.

(“My
bloody is
completely cheese”).

is what I have
a PRE-EXISTING
condition?

when is the LAST
TIME I had sexual
intercourse?

I
WENT TO
a DISPUTED REGION

the
DISPUTED REGION
via brain sucked

thru
nose straw
into canopic jar.

Though as I
say that
I know it’s

what
I’ve said
each time I’ve

arrived
at this
precise moment, before

I
pause then
notice a tribe

of
red ants
stuck like dried

cranberry
bits in
thin cracks in

the
oak bark.
To go on,

at
that point,
always seems an

inadequate
description of
what it is

we
do when
Brahma wakes. On

the
run, the
body wobbles. Sitting

still,
the planet
shakes. Fort … da …

[Note: For Alan, Tom and Geof. Sources: Ron Silliman’s new arrivals list, posted 1 Jul 09. Marie Buck, “List in the Window from the World”, “Bitumen”, “Hunt the Thief”, at La Petite Zine; Amy Catanzano, Starlight in Two Million: A Neo-Scientific Novella, at Tarpaulin Sky; Joel Chace, “in the kingdom of the American Way”, at Three Candles; René Char, as quoted in Mary Ann Caws, “René Char - Resistance in Every Way”, at The Brooklyn Rail; Jordan Davis, “The Facility Finder”, at Shampoo 34; Olena Kaltiak Davis, “That Which I Should Have Done I Did Not Do”, at Harriet; Brad Flis, “Screams and Permutations”, at Milk Magazine; Celia Gilbert, “September, Running With Birds”, at Ploughshares; Kevin Goodan, “Untitled”, at Alice James Books; Linda Gregg, “Now I Understand”, at Poets.org; Rob Halpern, “D I S A S T E R L Y R I C”, “D I S A S T E R L Y R I C”, “from Music for Porn”, at Eoagh; I skipped Serkan Işin, a visual poet, from whom I’d have to steal everything or nothing (that’s one of the interesting things about vispo; how to sample?); Ruth Lepson, untitled, at Moria; Paul Pines, “#6” at PaulPines.com; Amelia Rosselli, from War Variations (trs. Lucia Re and Paul Vangelisti), at The PIP Blog; Tomaž Šalamun, “Kestrel, Buzzard, Hawk, Falcon, Buzzard” (trs. Thomas Kane and Tomaž Šalamun), at Melancholia’s Tremulous Dreadlocks; Rachel M Simon, as quoted in blurb for her Theory of Orange, at Pavement Saw Press; Stacy Szymaszek, There Were Hostilities, hyper glossia, at Boston Review; Gail Wronsky, “Go On, Sure, Why Not”, at Verse Daily; Deborah Woodard, “Sanka Mnemonic”, at La Petite Zine]