… comforting words to him in a language he did not fully understand. She whispered happy exclamations in words he did not know the meaning of, but the tone was unmistakably that of a sweetheart towards her lover. Finally
in answer to a true scientist’s question in his eyes, she said in English: “They caught the thing alive. They await your order to advance.” “Let us be on our way,” said Larner and he started to arise. “You are hardly strong enough,” said Tula. “Believe me, I am all right,” insisted Larner, and a … B-r-r-r-r! The buzzer on his desk buzzed and his feet came off the desk. A whole poem by Tom Clark
plashed onscreen: The dispassionate banana lay / on the metal / hospital tray / table; old, / with many / black spots. The umbrella moves up down up down twelve times per minute. A larger-than-life swimmer strokes through a sea on a wall. A floor fan causes styrofoam cups to sway like ocean waves.
It is said that Atlas is wearying. Premonitory signs announce it: “……………………………………………………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………”
“Etcetera.” I’m fumigating
at the moment. Apparently, I should have harvested them when they were slightly larger than my large thumb (not my other, which is tiny). Lovers, statues, rocks, arise … roll as far as the sea … fish, salt, eat away the rust clinging to your limbs ; pistons, carburetors, axles, wheels, vibrate
eject oil racing engine under the eternal sun, paws, feelers, nippers, fangs, thorns, blades, spears, sex organs, vibrate ; tears, molten lead, blind the repentant torturer. Cloud, smoke, beat like the heart above me ; sand, wind, rekindled ash, men’s and beasts’ hides turned to powder ; of the embrace all that remains is a bit of powder and the vomiting behind the window pane : - Serge, Serge, are you there? What are you doing? You’re feeling sick …
Right now the “recording instruments” are somewhat gummy like the thousand-mile
fungus living under the earth, only cold and long dead stars to navigate by waving so long, suckers! from a billion year-long wake of light—something
wriggles when cut in two then three then up to so many I forget which name it goes by. You thought you were a different kind of stripper, a sassier version, so put it in the newspaper and on television
which they never turn off even when doing very light work such as guard duty or cleaning a rifle or something. If we were carpenters on the roof I would discover a way to hammer quietly or I wouldn’t, as the lady in the market confided, the corporations own everything. How’s that for a bit of The New Sincerity? Anyway, this post isn’t about that, it’s about spasms and grotesque anatomies. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The cheek, the crack, and the cheek.
[Note: Sources: 201. Anthony Pelcher, “Vampires of Venus”, in Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930, as transmitted to me in an email ad for Viagra, etc from Norsaganay Chapko to one Osnoe Colyott, at my address, 19 Sep 2010, 1:36:30 p.m., and as identified and vaguely skimmed at Project Gutenberg; Tom Clark, “Objctivity/Measure”, at Tom Clark Beyond the Pale, 19 Sept 010; Jim Jenkins and Dave Quick, motion/motion: Kinetic Art, describing Bryan Rogers, Machine to Move an Umbrella Up and Down and Fred Tomaselli, Shoreline. 202. Habib Tengour, “Maghrebian Surrealism” (tr. Pierre Joris), at Poems and Poetics, 20 Sept 010; Nikki Reimer, “The more things digitize the more we return to the printed page”, at Lemon Hound, 20 Sept 010; Eileen Tabios, “Squash Moi!”, at The Blind Chatelaine’s Keys, 19 Sept 010; Pierre Guyotat, Tomb for 500,000 Soldiers (tr. Romain Slocomb). 203. Habib Tengour, “Maghrebian Surrealism” (tr. Pierre Joris), at Poems and Poetics, 20 Sept 010; Jennifer L Knox, “The Emptiness, Armed Only With Dreams, Brings Singular Shapes Into The World”, “Postscript: I Made it a Manwich Night”, at Spooky Boyfriend 1; Amy King, “A Hole in My Name”, at Spooky Boyfriend 1; Juliet Cook, “Undressing”, at Spooky Boyfriend 1; Shanna Compton, “Need Anything from Home Depot?”, at Spooky Boyfriend 1; Stephen Daniel Lewis, “Cutting Board”, at Spooky Boyfriend 1; true encounter, afternoon of 19 Sept 010 – I saw a woman in an Obama 08 t-shirt and asked her if she still liked him – she wasn’t overly enthusiastic … but as she said, what difference could he have made, really, the corporations own everything. I didn’t see any reason to mention that even tho they hate him, he’s still their lackey; Johannes Göransson, “Basquiat’s Body Possessed by Media”, at Exoskeleton, 20 Sept 010; something I read a long time ago, when I worked at Black Sparrow Press, that said the best way to understand the nature of the Holy Trinity was to consider the nature of the ass]