* * * FIGURATION * * *

John Bennett, Two Poems

John Bennett

FasT or H

 

PopocA

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John M. Bennett’s most recent books include SUMO MI TOSIS (White Sky Books), THE GNAT'S WINDOW (Luna Bisonte Prods), CORRESPONDENCE 1979-1983 (with Davi Det Hompson; Luna Bisonte Prods), EL HUMO LETRADO (White Sky Books), RESPIROPATIAS (with Juan Angel Italiano; Edicionesdelcementerio), FIVE PERFORMANCE SCORES (Fluxpress), TORPEZA CON TORPEZA (Sechisland), NITLATOA (Luna Bisonte Prods), LAS CABEZAS MAYAS (Luna Bisonte Prods), and TEXTIS GLOBBOLALICUS, vols 1, 2, 3 (mOnocle-Lash Anti-Press).
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RECONFIGURATIONS: A Journal for Poetics & Poetry / Literature & Culture, http://reconfigurations.blogspot.com/, ISSN: 1938-3592, Volume 5 (2011): Disappearance

Mark DuCharme, "The Unfinished"

Mark DuCharme

The Unfinished

The ghost-buildings are still here

We don’t know a way to address them

They stare at us yes really stare

They will never go away

To go away, at the onset of speech

To stare with ghost-window-eyes

To be truly naked in the telling

Or speak, at the onset of being dreamed

If you dream. If you speak. If you

Enter ghost-space (language is a ghost)

The space of the story that you weave

To enter or depart

Depart in hunger of words apparitionally

In economies of having been seen

Depart in violent day-rhythm lurking

While mislaying the proportions of the shadows of the bees

The Unfinished

The scar is what we imagine it

To be. The light goes scarcely

Through wind. When you sear

Or scare, you can disappear

Into wind in a parallel

Motion to its

Trace. The plan is to seed

In bloom of thought

Embedded. That’s not true; you are

Embodied, &

The thought is you. Appear then

In necessities of sight, &

Move as love, into darkening light.

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Mark DuCharme’s newest book of poetry is Answer (BlazeVOX, 2011).  His previous print books include The Sensory Cabinet (BlazeVOX, 2007), Infinity Subsections (Meeting Eyes Bindery, 2004) and Cosmopolitan Tremble (Pavement Saw, 2002).  The Found Titles Project was published electronically in 2009 by Ahadada (www.ahadadabooks.com).  The latest of his many chapbooks is The Crowd Poems  (Potato Clock Editions, 2007).  In 2008 he began a writing project called The Unfinished, parts of which have appeared in Blue & Yellow Dog, Colorado Review, Eleven Eleven, Eratio, New American Writing, Poets for Living Waters, Or, Otoliths, Pinstripe Fedora, Raft and Word for/Word.  He lives, works in and teaches near Boulder, Colorado, and has recently launched a Web site: http://mark-ducharme.com/

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RECONFIGURATIONS: A Journal for Poetics & Poetry / Literature & Culture, http://reconfigurations.blogspot.com/, ISSN: 1938-3592, Volume 5 (2011): Disappearance 

Vernon Frazer, Three Poems

Vernon Frazer

Bearing the Barely Spoken at Length

Happy Campers at Work on Play

 

Meaning Baskets in Heat

 

 

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Vernon Frazer: “Listening to and playing Jazz has influenced my work as much as studying literature.  A musical as well as linguistic sensibility guides me when I place words and shapes on the page.  Improvisation employs a different method of exposition from conventional writing, so ‘meanings’ emerge through methods [quite] different from those used in writing an essay.  When in doubt, follow the music.”

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RECONFIGURATIONS: A Journal for Poetics & Poetry / Literature & Culture, http://reconfigurations.blogspot.com/, ISSN: 1938-3592, Volume 5 (2011): Disappearance

Dan Thomas-Glass, “Dunkalectics”

Dan Thomas-Glass

Dunkalectics

 
crunch-time hurts samples
going head 4 ball

playoff games mysteriously disappear from Chinese television

Paul worked

clock leaped

field dished

Jack

paint nailed exploded

Superman disappear

haul jumper

crunch years shots

superstar doubles superstars

better

ol’ broken ditched man

marks crunch

Score guy

depth disappears

crunch

pass Imagine passive

Manhood kicked

line idea

seldom slightly-above-average

yeah

guy ball blatantly

shoot hard

mildly better

slow win

break system

owners line muscle mirrors

terrible illusions

looking destroying working feeling recurring

Magic disappears

Dunkalectics

penned suit

quote Profit

score money delusion money

buy

buy

money crunch

choke Russell

crying

accept accept accept

darn

inspire video zone radio TV

drunk

wrist Bonner

competition performed

peek constant hands gasping

Sometimes quoted Love

scoring fears ineptitude

hard pressure shove

Lewis disappear

come constitutional instinct

stat maddening deal

flowery rhymes

story Dominate swore tape

written stacks MVP

clincher

crying beat girth

flexed giant forever

mighty ignored

stretching Spectator green game machine

liar age

Whopper Stories promise antsy

first silent tape

intentions attitude contract

writes trouble

fouls disguise

superior stint attack

doubled poor-scoring

overcome flow

Meltdown Disappear

bigger outside-in bench

wings sacrificing shooting compared minutes stuff assists

singled detriment super-scorer touches Bulls

tempo pass/shoot kick-outs gym penetrate

muscled positioned improvisation

cameras loss heated verbal jawing

stop stop stopping

funny guys express doing team scream

doing laugh action

endless intrigue made-for-Hollywood

Paul soft marginal rest

stunning imprint

minded injured

to not disappear

now swollen injured suckered glistening

knocking minutes literally

leading built beauty air

winning time

injure hiding seriously

blowing liability

hurting damage

feels line

deal greatness pain

things played

cry letters

slow anybody

younger critics

three victory shot heads

How to Disappear Completely

performance victory size

control Center must best-of-seven

best-of-seven backs forward

push breathtaking flirted run

stretch victory

taut blowout

dished thuggery

happy staff

Bad-footed stubborn sweaty followers

investigate disappearance

perplexed going sag

come

looked guided

first happier watches growth

might disappear

passion phenomenal

Bob blowing player

pulled crazy night

cool

franchise desperately Brawl

Company map

love restrained handshakes

dirty cheap expletives

ejected dirty caught ejected throat Bulls

struggling ropes

jaw have must have stupid

lose hummingbirds

blown suffered record fail back

guys body capable

capable bipolar pretty

final cruise scored positive

loss wrap show blueprint

teams Heat way silly times

home creaky jacked

hard

do tricky

bring walk return

confronted

flash seed run snuffed frustrated seed eliminated seeds

sides rallied

staged marketing

aired lambaste

shots side shots Nothing

staff nowhere nowhere chip

Boy grips Thunder

night Heat Potential

then

Heat

Heat

Heat

victory idle

Disappear?

New open Arena News flared

shelved condition

shelved shut

insisted burnish grit-and-spit limitations

leap recriminations

faithful witness

class tattoo irony

Morning debacle

alpha-male closed buts

road home

Center heartbreak heart pounding paying splinter

situations images

hard Patty choice

forget play hit pick

talking clock personnel

the disappearance of

team Phil Tyrone challenge

assistant average trips

occasions toughest shooters

system hand contract

guys guy

turnaround huddle

behind facing hands drained Parker

banks bigger not feel

pull illusions

came felt gave Commercial

hurts

vanquishing franchise

stunned celebrating movie

Gary Europe beyond clear

Curly ball

play chance

frothing Heaven Herald ‘breakfast’

dessert

unduly presumptuous sumptuously good breakfast

energy bit

tough lunch

defeat following survivor

Beating define doubt

worth loss

meaningless

identical

honestly growth hope Band-Aid

compete cynicism

grow positions

fabulous Rod doing guys

guys waste floor Heat

aging pin key

well ball tied

load ball

ball nice

ultimate gun ball wealth

Grew beanstalk crunchtime

uh-oh

beat moves ladder

opened squeezably

one-handers two back exhilaration

pulled down

blessed young early grow

flickered nice

fewer greatness

better best charge face

might beat inspiration

spark bloated beat annihilated column

immensely firmly fold

flip-flopper

flip-flopper

keen long material

old makeup

heading doesn’t-get-it-ness paid glory

[blame]

much Johnson stunk humiliation

anybody inconveniences change

respond career stature rules

principles model thing

ads Godzilla tired

worse beloved enigmatic heroic okey-doke

swore limp Paul

Closing drive anew

crutch killer

trail flat unfiltered

oft-complacent

leap grown pivotal physical hard

in ground our off glorious wish

court snowflakes sock-‘em

able intangibles battle end

franchise-record fast-break stops

run back critical

insists tonight

lines resemble staircase

point hinges view defining sorry

myself legs asserted done

guards silky sexy youth

‘chubby’

pitted schooling pile

death elders beauty peek

bull-rush not himself

fight push uncertain move

close owns members businesses

finances built plan appears

owners permission Honda

question Anaheim

disappear today.

 
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Dan Thomas-Glass is, unfortunately, a Warriors fan.  His work has recently appeared in Little Red Leaves, Volt, Armed Cell, Try, and as part of the Poetic Labor Project.  His third chapbook Kate & Sonia (in the months before our second daughter's birth) is forthcoming in early 2012 from the Little Red Leaves Textile Series.  He edits With + Stand in the East San Francisco Bay Area.

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RECONFIGURATIONS: A Journal for Poetics & Poetry / Literature & Culture, http://reconfigurations.blogspot.com/, ISSN: 1938-3592, Volume 5 (2011): Disappearance  

Jeff Harrison, “Breaking”

 

Jeff Harrison

Breaking

quickly glad,
the tiny here sickness
in wind out ripple many years

eye real in
green to breaking too
twofold and challenged to disappear

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Jeff Harrison has publications from Writers Forum, MAG Press, Persistencia Press, White Sky Books, and Furniture Press.  He has e-books from Blazevox, xPress(ed), Argotist Ebooks, and Chalk Editions.  His poetry has appeared in An Introduction to the Prose Poem (Firewheel Editions), The Hay(na)ku Anthology Vol. II (Meritage Press), The Chained Hay(na)ku Project (Meritage Press), Sentence: a Journal of Prose Poetics, Otoliths, Xerography, Moria, NOON: journal of the short poem, Dusie, MiPOesias, Big Bridge, and elsewhere.

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RECONFIGURATIONS: A Journal for Poetics & Poetry / Literature & Culture, http://reconfigurations.blogspot.com/, ISSN: 1938-3592, Volume 5 (2011): Disappearance  

Joan Harvey, “Sound of Machinery”

Joan Harvey

The Sound of Machinery Stopping

Her name is Delia.  She is 43, part Chippewa, on her way to an ex-lover’s cabin.  Not strong enough for the journey really.  She plays piano, has been a social person, had had a beautiful daughter who died.  Is a past tense.  Delia waits for what will come through.

A strange biting in her hands.  A noose over her tongue.  The cabin where she is headed is a site of guilt.  Years before Delia had betrayed its owner with another man. 

A mark that speaks of death links her to all others afflicted.  In the world of the body new tracings, new tracks of purple and red, holes into the skin, difficulties breathing.  No longer can Delia take this landscape of the self for granted.   Something else has come to grow there. 

The illness which comes out of her or is joined to her transfigures, so she doesn’t know what is her, what is this other that remakes her body, redefines her energy fields?

On the other hand, Delia fits the cabin perfectly.  Couchwise, but also fragrantly.  Mingled odors of must, decay, old sunshine, blend and suit perfectly.

Delia loses one red shoe.  And wonders what was she doing wearing such bright sneakers?

Rodents overrun the place, steal her food, leave their shit.  Delia thinks to trap them, put them in a bag and place them in the freezer.  In case of famine. 

A mountain made of grayness and light.

Each morning Delia looks not for solace, but for signs.  The phone rings – a wrong number.  Delia is alone in a room.   Her heart may or may not beat in the right place.  The refrigerator is due for a cleaning.  For lunch, toffee and broccoli.

Everything now comes in waves in differing forms - sometimes just sensation.  Occasionally Delia lets herself open, falling into something deep and regular, great expansiveness.  If only this could be maintained.

Degeneration into porno fantasies, her in the middle.  Two men, not altogether straight.  Hours and hours.  And wants from the past – some child pleasure thing.   It makes sense to just let go.  Piling up the pillows, the head that cannot support itself.  Weakness.  As soon as she allows herself sleep, she cannot. 

Breathe against anguish, against anxiety, breathe into the warmth where she shuts herself.

More, not to be said or imagined, but disgorged.  The important thing is to make few plans and leave herself plenty of time.  Work on the reassurance technique.  Rid herself of the old nerve boxes.  Don't get lazy, but be understanding.  Don't waste time on advice. 

Delia wants to lose her identity, bury it in the mud by the side of a sleep river, but as she covers it, Delia worries that it will be stolen and then she’ll have nothing.  Delia digs it up again and carries it muddily on.

There is a pillow she pretends to talk to, but basically Delia thinks Delia is insane.  Delia should be locked up.  She can't bear this thought.  She’ll die or scream.  The screams have holes in them where moths and bugs fly through.  Her teeth possibly rotting.  And the ex-boyfriend of the cabin and his teeth.  If he were here.  Delia sits up in her sleep and says "Cherries, strawberries, and limes." 

The mice are involved.  When each drama is overturned, the noise of scurrying underneath. The articulation of each phrase is somehow unpleasant.  She wishes for a return to muffles. 

Washing her white night dress.

Delia is baffled, filled with pain sent down.

Wild geese hit the sky.

Seeds of death carried inside like her eggs.

Little hooks under the blood.

Press on past.  Precipice.  Until the only thing.

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Joan Harvey’s fiction, poems, and translations have appeared in numerous journals including recently Web Conjunctions, Drunken Boat, Smokelong Quarterly, Otoliths, and Danse Macabre.  She thinks disappearance can be a practice, a fantasy, a necessity, or an art.

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RECONFIGURATIONS: A Journal for Poetics & Poetry / Literature & Culture, http://reconfigurations.blogspot.com/, ISSN: 1938-3592, Volume 5 (2011): Disappearance