FCF 111

you
won’t catch
me drooling on

the
keyboard again.
Dear, there is

a
bridge between
the middle and

the
end. Designed
by winds, caused

to
flex. A
spectre has haunted

itself,
next to
a sleazy gas

station
and down
the block from

the
International House
of Pancakes. You

asked
that I
send the secret

book
to a
post office box

near
the airport.
I am not

certain
you will
be able to

open
this attachment.
“By then / there

was
no going
back, so he

sprayed /
the turtle’s
head with Raid /

and
wrapped it
up in a

bath
towel / and
threw it into

the
garbage bin….”
Our world is

more
lovely than
anyone’s. The land

collapses
and does
not exist. The

map
is a
map of the

map.
It was
drawn by a

computer
program that
translated French Surrealist

poetry
based on
the neural feedback

of
a Jeff
Koons squid. Nine

stitches
and liquid
morphine cannot make

it
inaccurate. Go
ahead: ask me

how
I KNOW
that. A little

reification
is necessary.
Rest and drink

plenty
of liquids.
I see skin

in
the pious
dust – I’m like

it’s
an olive
branch, out of

necessity
a grain
of rice before

all
else is
really just a

grain
of rice
[a hunk of

skin]
that[’s] striving
for clarity looking

for
an audience,
wanting to be

heard
[again]. Schelling
advances the question

whether
the being
of logical space

can
be conceived
of as contingent,

having
in mind
the problem of

facticity
or groundlessness.
I’m in sympathy

more
with the
elves and you,

good,
hospitable demons
we can cherish

with.
In the
bathtub. While listening

to
the music
of Eric Dolphy.

“[W]hile
the soot-
tinted noise of

too-
full streets
echoes / and I

pick
up the
quietly diminishing soap

&
do / myself
again.” If I

am
an extension
of this world

then
I am
an extension of

garbage,
shit, pesticides,
bombed and smoldering

cities,
microchips,
cyber, astral and

biological
pollution. I
hate to admit

this,
brother, but
there are times

when
I’m eating
fried chicken / When

I
think about
nothing else but

eating
fried chicken.
Therefore I ask

you
therefore wherefore
should one use

the
question mark.
In Warhol's case,

one
sees a
colorist as pleasing

as
Matisse in
the iconic grid

of
the soup
can: combinations of

mauve
and purple
and green and

vermillion
never glimpsed
on the shelves

of
the supermarket
except perhaps in

a
dream or,
alternatively, seen on

early
color television
sets circa the

same
period. Let
us use your

shoes,
as they
have almost demonstrated.

[Note: sources: bits found on the web by the authors listed in SPD Poetry bestsellers, Nov 09, in descending order. And. The 1st of 2. Kate Greenstreet, The Last Four Things, at The Literary Review, Summer 07; Graham Foust, “The Evolution Jamboree”, at Cultureport; Sherman Alexie, “Requiem for a Pay Phone”, at Shampoo 36; Barbara Claire Freeman, “The Apochryphon of St. Ursula”, at The Language Exchange; Rachel McGibbons, “The Day After the First Time We Ran Away From Home”, as quoted in Barbara Jane Reyes’ review of McGibbons’ Pink Elephant, at Harriet; Amiri Baraka, “Ka’Ba”, at Modern American Poetry; I skipped Sherman Alexie since I already hit him; Mary Kasimor, in her review of Craig Santos Perez’s from Unincorporated Territory, at Jacket 37 (as close as I could come to something by CSP, whose reviews are everywhere, but not his poems); Peter Campion, as quoted and paraphrased by Christine Hume, in her letter to Poetry re: Campion’s Poetry mag review of Jeff Clark’s Music and Suicide, at Poetry Foundation.org; Christine Hume, “Lunar Halo”, at Typo 6; Rolly delos Santos, email to JBR, 6 Nov 09; Tomaž Šalamun, “Again the Roads are Silent” (trs. Christopher Merrill and Tomaž Šalamun), “To a Golem” (tr Charles Simic), at Poetry International Web; Truong Tran, Four Letter Words, as quoted in Stephen Hong Sohn (?)’s review at Live Journal; Markus Gabriel, “The Mythological Being of Reflection – An Essay on Hegel, Schelling, and the Contingency of Necessity”, in Markus Gabriel and Slavoj Žižek, Mythology, Madness and Laughter: Subjectivity in German Idealism (not SPD); John Ashbery, “Some Silly Thing”, “Poem”, in Planisphere (not SPD); CA Conrad, “#36 Confetti Allegiance”, on Jim Brodey, and Brodey himself, “Little Light”, at (Soma)tic Poetry Exercises, 1 Dec 09, and introductory note from Conrad’s (Soma)tic Midge as found at Poet CA Conrad; Linh Dinh, “Eating Fried Chicken”, at Woodland Pattern; Kenneth Goldsmith typing Gertrude Stein, “Gertrude Stein on Punctuation”, at EPC; Aram Saroyan, review of The Collected Poems of Ted Berrigan, in American Poetry Review, Sept/Oct 08, as found at bnet]

Comments

[Ed Baker]

I have a copy of Truong Tran's de:lightful story

Going Home / Coming Home

with equally de:lightful illistrations
by Ann Phong

bi-linual