Showing posts with label Poems. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poems. Show all posts
Monday, November 30, 2009
Salvatore Attardo, "Columbus Poems"
Salvatore Attardo
Columbus Poems
COLUMBUS' FIRST WORDS
I had dreamed hundreds of times
of my first step on American soil
and even had memorable words ready:
“This is a big step for me
and nothing for humanity.”
I landed at O'Hare
on the coldest night of the year
and left the plane almost last
with the off-duty crew.
So little was their concern
they didn't even bother
opening my suitcase.
And that was it:
actual America;
I immediately lost my way
looking for the gate.
That was America, indeed
ice in my apple juice
leaving Chicago by air.
COLUMBUS NOT STOPPING
I like to imagine
Columbus not stopping
passing Hispaniola
making land in the isthmus
crossing the mountains
half mad with fever
urging the few men left with him
to go forward
Obviously, I am thinking of Kinski’s
performance in Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo
and Aiguirre, the Wrath of God
as well as Harrison Ford in Mosquito Coast
and of course Hector Babenco’s
At Play in the Fields of the Lord.
But anyway, Columbus
crosses the isthmus
and faces the Pacific,
except this is no metaphor,
there is no Pocahontas:
Columbus sets sail in the Pacific
alone, or perhaps with a lone
pilot, a last trusted sailor
and is never heard of again.
I do not know why this image
appeals to me,
why a suicidal obsession
should be so inspiring.
The truth is I imagine
Columbus taking flight
transcending the ocean
becoming lighter than light
_____
Salvatore Attardo is a Professor in the Literature and Languages Department at Texas A&M – Commerce. His poems, translations and photographs have been published or are forthcoming in Italian Americana, Apocalypse, Harpur Palate, Cadillac Cicatrix, Quiddity, Tampa Review and others.
_____
RECONFIGURATIONS: A Journal for Poetics & Poetry / Literature & Culture, http://reconfigurations.blogspot.com/, ISSN: 1938-3592, Volume Three (2009): Immanence/ Imminence
_____
Columbus Poems
COLUMBUS' FIRST WORDS
I had dreamed hundreds of times
of my first step on American soil
and even had memorable words ready:
“This is a big step for me
and nothing for humanity.”
I landed at O'Hare
on the coldest night of the year
and left the plane almost last
with the off-duty crew.
So little was their concern
they didn't even bother
opening my suitcase.
And that was it:
actual America;
I immediately lost my way
looking for the gate.
That was America, indeed
ice in my apple juice
leaving Chicago by air.
COLUMBUS NOT STOPPING
I like to imagine
Columbus not stopping
passing Hispaniola
making land in the isthmus
crossing the mountains
half mad with fever
urging the few men left with him
to go forward
Obviously, I am thinking of Kinski’s
performance in Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo
and Aiguirre, the Wrath of God
as well as Harrison Ford in Mosquito Coast
and of course Hector Babenco’s
At Play in the Fields of the Lord.
But anyway, Columbus
crosses the isthmus
and faces the Pacific,
except this is no metaphor,
there is no Pocahontas:
Columbus sets sail in the Pacific
alone, or perhaps with a lone
pilot, a last trusted sailor
and is never heard of again.
I do not know why this image
appeals to me,
why a suicidal obsession
should be so inspiring.
The truth is I imagine
Columbus taking flight
transcending the ocean
becoming lighter than light
_____
Salvatore Attardo is a Professor in the Literature and Languages Department at Texas A&M – Commerce. His poems, translations and photographs have been published or are forthcoming in Italian Americana, Apocalypse, Harpur Palate, Cadillac Cicatrix, Quiddity, Tampa Review and others.
_____
RECONFIGURATIONS: A Journal for Poetics & Poetry / Literature & Culture, http://reconfigurations.blogspot.com/, ISSN: 1938-3592, Volume Three (2009): Immanence/ Imminence
_____
Emily Brandt, "Deep blue"
Emily Brandt
Deep blue
I was one of those girls who used pliers
to zip their flies. I had bad teeth
and ugly jeans; a hair dryer
blowing incessantly, a small dog
snapping at my ankles,
my ankles tucked neatly into white socks.
I combed my hair, whirring in clouds
of wind, with a sewing needle,
some thread. I wove in blackberries
and blackbird feathers, and beaks,
and Jessie’s model ship,
and buttons from the button box,
and dollhouse tables, even
a salt lick from the stables
where I liked to lay in hay.
_____
Emily Brandt teaches English and yoga to high school students in Brooklyn, co-edits No, Dear magazine, and is working on her MFA at NYU. Her poems have appeared in Podium, BluePrint Review, Swamp, and more; and her photos have appeared in The New York Times and The Jewish Weekly.
_____
RECONFIGURATIONS: A Journal for Poetics & Poetry / Literature & Culture, http://reconfigurations.blogspot.com/, ISSN: 1938-3592, Volume Three (2009): Immanence/ Imminence
_____
Deep blue
I was one of those girls who used pliers
to zip their flies. I had bad teeth
and ugly jeans; a hair dryer
blowing incessantly, a small dog
snapping at my ankles,
my ankles tucked neatly into white socks.
I combed my hair, whirring in clouds
of wind, with a sewing needle,
some thread. I wove in blackberries
and blackbird feathers, and beaks,
and Jessie’s model ship,
and buttons from the button box,
and dollhouse tables, even
a salt lick from the stables
where I liked to lay in hay.
_____
Emily Brandt teaches English and yoga to high school students in Brooklyn, co-edits No, Dear magazine, and is working on her MFA at NYU. Her poems have appeared in Podium, BluePrint Review, Swamp, and more; and her photos have appeared in The New York Times and The Jewish Weekly.
_____
RECONFIGURATIONS: A Journal for Poetics & Poetry / Literature & Culture, http://reconfigurations.blogspot.com/, ISSN: 1938-3592, Volume Three (2009): Immanence/ Imminence
_____
Charles Freeland, "Units of Measurement"
Charles Freeland
Reducible to Units of Measurement
The levee stretches halfway to Albertson, a town I remember from childhood when we used to invent towns in our conversation. And then endeavor to make them real by drawing them on pieces of paper. I concentrated on the packing district, sure that some day I would quit school and wind up there. Like the uncle I was also forced to invent through the strictness of the rules. Sometimes we acknowledge what we have until that time steadfastly ignored – as if changing direction might allow us to free ourselves from the grip of fear. Or small-mindedness. But there are suits of armor in the hallway and you can’t just wish them away. They have to be dealt with in a practical manner. The same as those mummies you saw in a case once in the museum in St. Louis. You kept asking whether they were important personages wrapped up and stowed away for millennia. Even the placards refused to tell the whole story. The cobb salad did not end up causing you the distress you suspected at first it might. But no matter how frequently you expressed this and other fears to the patrons who accompanied you through the hallways, no one seemed to believe a word you said.
It’s like there are two layers of discourse at all times – one associated with the surface of things where we move about quite comfortably. And another associated with that which is hidden or underneath (depending on your perspective; depending on, for example, your age or your height relative to those who constructed the buildings in the first place). This is, finally, an illusion. Much like that which occurs when warm air gets trapped under a layer of colder air and all sorts of human figures seem to dance around beneath the trees that line the horizon.
_____
Charles Freeland lives in Dayton, Ohio. The recipient of an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council, he is the author of two collections of poetry, Through the Funeral Mountains on a Burro (Otoliths Books) and Grubb (BlazeVOX), as well as several chapbooks: Eulalie & Squid (Chippens Press), Furiant, Not Polka (Moria), and The Case of the Danish King Halfdene (Mudlark). His website is The Fossil Record (www.charlesfreelandpoetry.net) and his blog is Spring Cleaning in the Labyrinth of the Continuum (www.charlesfreeland.blogspot.com).
_____
RECONFIGURATIONS: A Journal for Poetics & Poetry / Literature & Culture, http://reconfigurations.blogspot.com/, ISSN: 1938-3592, Volume Three (2009): Immanence/ Imminence
_____
Reducible to Units of Measurement
The levee stretches halfway to Albertson, a town I remember from childhood when we used to invent towns in our conversation. And then endeavor to make them real by drawing them on pieces of paper. I concentrated on the packing district, sure that some day I would quit school and wind up there. Like the uncle I was also forced to invent through the strictness of the rules. Sometimes we acknowledge what we have until that time steadfastly ignored – as if changing direction might allow us to free ourselves from the grip of fear. Or small-mindedness. But there are suits of armor in the hallway and you can’t just wish them away. They have to be dealt with in a practical manner. The same as those mummies you saw in a case once in the museum in St. Louis. You kept asking whether they were important personages wrapped up and stowed away for millennia. Even the placards refused to tell the whole story. The cobb salad did not end up causing you the distress you suspected at first it might. But no matter how frequently you expressed this and other fears to the patrons who accompanied you through the hallways, no one seemed to believe a word you said.
It’s like there are two layers of discourse at all times – one associated with the surface of things where we move about quite comfortably. And another associated with that which is hidden or underneath (depending on your perspective; depending on, for example, your age or your height relative to those who constructed the buildings in the first place). This is, finally, an illusion. Much like that which occurs when warm air gets trapped under a layer of colder air and all sorts of human figures seem to dance around beneath the trees that line the horizon.
_____
Charles Freeland lives in Dayton, Ohio. The recipient of an Individual Excellence Award from the Ohio Arts Council, he is the author of two collections of poetry, Through the Funeral Mountains on a Burro (Otoliths Books) and Grubb (BlazeVOX), as well as several chapbooks: Eulalie & Squid (Chippens Press), Furiant, Not Polka (Moria), and The Case of the Danish King Halfdene (Mudlark). His website is The Fossil Record (www.charlesfreelandpoetry.net) and his blog is Spring Cleaning in the Labyrinth of the Continuum (www.charlesfreeland.blogspot.com).
_____
RECONFIGURATIONS: A Journal for Poetics & Poetry / Literature & Culture, http://reconfigurations.blogspot.com/, ISSN: 1938-3592, Volume Three (2009): Immanence/ Imminence
_____
Geoffrey Gatza, "4 Poems"
Geoffrey Gatza
4 Poems
The Conk-Singleton Forgery Case
and I have myself found it a very soothing atmosphere
but you have a kinder heart over these long years. I fill my glass with whiskey and ice
and the oily pleasure with which he does his evil. To deal with the case
and the dog that was the Sussex Vampire’s first victim. Then there was the mongoose
swelling into small lakes on either side. Our guide paused at the mouth of this bridge
With hope. Our hope is an Easter hope: that in the face of death and deterioration
and picking up his hat he turned to the door
alone
almost like visiting a chapel. It is how history unfolds onto paper and how one can display
one bit that unfolds layer of relevant history upon personal interest that makes the curator an artist!
The Smith-Mortimer succession case
He was stiff and cold marked as the ragged shaw,
An inscrutable smile upon his face.
Several kinds of missing documents
Five stolen gemstones
Too many missing persons
Blackmailers and scandals galore
Eight kinds of murder for inheritances
Revenge upon revenge
And one bank robbery
Fake paintings and airguns, disappointing relatives
masquerades & technology undo all avarices
Truth must out.
The Paradol Chamber
we can sing Alleluia! for the curse has been broken
a country constable was on duty from twelve to six
all things were made new.
save in the Stranger's Room
alone she imagines he marries a young woman
and run along side the rest of boy’s literature in Steam Punk Glory.
One day I’d like to see Holmes fight Huck Finn
The Vatican Cameos
The fools are playing soot upon smoke upon scrabbling fire.
x worth eight points. They still live for all that love them well.
in a romantic chamber of the heart
in a nostalgic country of the mind where it is always 1895.
Billy and the Baker Street Irregulars. Old scale of pay.
The cartoon affirms, let us eat and drink
The life of Sherlock would bring only despair
This man is certainly one of the greatest subjects of the Crown!
So her in own words,
Some day the true story may be told.
_____
Geoffrey Gatza is the editor and Publisher of BlazeVOX [books] and the author of seven books of poetry; Kenmore: Poem Unlimited and Not So Fast Robespierre are now available from Menendez Publishing. HouseCat Kung Fu: Strange Poems for Wild Children is also available from Meritage Press. He is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY (1993) and Daemen College, Amherst, NY (2002), and served as a U.S. Marine in the first gulf war. He lives in Kenmore, NY with his girlfriend and two cats.
_____
RECONFIGURATIONS: A Journal for Poetics & Poetry / Literature & Culture, http://reconfigurations.blogspot.com/, ISSN: 1938-3592, Volume Three (2009): Immanence/ Imminence
_____
4 Poems
The Conk-Singleton Forgery Case
and I have myself found it a very soothing atmosphere
but you have a kinder heart over these long years. I fill my glass with whiskey and ice
and the oily pleasure with which he does his evil. To deal with the case
and the dog that was the Sussex Vampire’s first victim. Then there was the mongoose
swelling into small lakes on either side. Our guide paused at the mouth of this bridge
With hope. Our hope is an Easter hope: that in the face of death and deterioration
and picking up his hat he turned to the door
alone
almost like visiting a chapel. It is how history unfolds onto paper and how one can display
one bit that unfolds layer of relevant history upon personal interest that makes the curator an artist!
The Smith-Mortimer succession case
He was stiff and cold marked as the ragged shaw,
An inscrutable smile upon his face.
Several kinds of missing documents
Five stolen gemstones
Too many missing persons
Blackmailers and scandals galore
Eight kinds of murder for inheritances
Revenge upon revenge
And one bank robbery
Fake paintings and airguns, disappointing relatives
masquerades & technology undo all avarices
Truth must out.
The Paradol Chamber
we can sing Alleluia! for the curse has been broken
a country constable was on duty from twelve to six
all things were made new.
save in the Stranger's Room
alone she imagines he marries a young woman
and run along side the rest of boy’s literature in Steam Punk Glory.
One day I’d like to see Holmes fight Huck Finn
The Vatican Cameos
The fools are playing soot upon smoke upon scrabbling fire.
x worth eight points. They still live for all that love them well.
in a romantic chamber of the heart
in a nostalgic country of the mind where it is always 1895.
Billy and the Baker Street Irregulars. Old scale of pay.
The cartoon affirms, let us eat and drink
The life of Sherlock would bring only despair
This man is certainly one of the greatest subjects of the Crown!
So her in own words,
Some day the true story may be told.
_____
Geoffrey Gatza is the editor and Publisher of BlazeVOX [books] and the author of seven books of poetry; Kenmore: Poem Unlimited and Not So Fast Robespierre are now available from Menendez Publishing. HouseCat Kung Fu: Strange Poems for Wild Children is also available from Meritage Press. He is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, NY (1993) and Daemen College, Amherst, NY (2002), and served as a U.S. Marine in the first gulf war. He lives in Kenmore, NY with his girlfriend and two cats.
_____
RECONFIGURATIONS: A Journal for Poetics & Poetry / Literature & Culture, http://reconfigurations.blogspot.com/, ISSN: 1938-3592, Volume Three (2009): Immanence/ Imminence
_____
Ray Gonzalez, "4 Poems"
Ray Gonzalez
4 Poems
MILES
Weather as token flipped inside trumpet wig. Calibrated dimension invited the clear the subjective response where data annexes previous attempts to decipher the closed window. The staring is incomplete and involves ancient theory of magnetic fusion with vowels and feathers originating in abolished countries never charted or dreamed.
Favors instead of visions, dynamics of a clay bowl. Agreement is made to announce a handful of salt is more effective than touching the right buttons at the moment of closure. Several components were left out of the bomb invention amidst the flowers and trees and the moment of collision was hidden inside a book no one opened, minimizing shrapnel.
Composing a thesis. Careful examination of the staring individual discovers the blank page is the field beyond the staring, a meeting place for the salt grains from the hand and the pure confession moving out of the eye. If peace came out of the jigsaw puzzle, it was mistaken for a flock of birds entering the fire and emerging as planes of truth embedded in a sore, watering eyeball.
Artifact corruption, staged withdrawal, eyebrow embrace contradicted. Chirping sounds, humid armpits, angry digression revealing how the outline of the rejected biological father got there. The complete invitation would have included two jump ropes, a silver dollar, eight bottles of milk, and the perception everything is sensual and afraid.
Confession is ignored, windows drawn quietly. Calibrated dimension invited to declare transformation of the breast into a mountain imitation that does not allow climbing or the essential union of cell and hair. A few moments were given to the prized illumination that changed equations and corrupted the wires leading to the transformation of vocabularies.
Weather as metal token music, eyeball forgotten pickpocket. Mounted canvas, white sheet absolved of struggle between the plain and the creator signifies how often the geometrical kiss becomes the couple involved in mythic sins. History antithesis news arrow-shaped and hurtling toward uncreated space where the decision to completely erase the plot was made over a bowl of frozen shrimp.
Trumpet castigation, underwater ear, no end to wanting trouble, mystified union. The hand now empty of salt, holding onto the light that sperm gives when it is spilled at random, the letting forth not given a name because the calculations remain on a copy of the disc. The mind embrace is a fiction designed to thwart geniuses and allow the bare foot to accomplish syntax and move itself under the clouds without being noticed.
Enrapture fingers upheld. The size of the thumb has a great deal to do with this and it is about to reveal what really happened when the streets were plowed after blizzards renamed thought. Intervention where the white surface awaits composition declared without the fulcrum or bended knee. Soon twig, someday paper.
If the circus went home and gave itself away, the face paint would be washed off to create colorful patterns in the sink that would someday lead to an involvement and a flaw once removed from the diamond, the head bowed in grief, followed by discipline and threats, murmurs that don’t restart the system, dark centuries in the heart of arrogance, contradictions as churchyard crusades where no calibrated dimensions are allowed because they do not believe the cleanest text is the forgiven word that ignites desire.
The situation activates the senses even if confession is outdated and the first item to be stolen has to do with a signature and a way of recording how often it rained. Blame blast. If the language line is allowed to function and become a tricky text in the history of trickster manipulation, then a wasted habit and its retention takes place without matchbooks.
The weather that was lost in this was the environment in which to prove the idea that the complex geometry of messing with proper lyrical saturation is an act of conformity. Any kind of sorrow must be left out of the pages selected as guilty, though guilt is outlawed in the process of avant-garde proclamation. If only the shrewd approach was worth it, the suspenders of the fat man would hold.
It is the way the brain functions and pretends there is something extracted into the air to be pronounced holy and visionary, though human. What if every single word of every single line of every single stanza was blown-up and laughter shifted the earth’s axis? The true self is a stranger in this film. The oceanic self is a stranger in a roll of meat. The caustic self is a crayon in this shade of mistake. The boring self is a bore granted books on an earth without books.
Perhaps this list of things is simply a co-host and the philosophic dance is merely a troubled style of poetic stupidity that steals everything the tradition brought forth with a trumpet. If time out was an idea, then time in could be the next phase.
THE ONE WORD DEVICE
after Thomas Cook
I must be a scar. Glad window. Frozen domination of the period. Escarpment. The wheel used to spell "blood." I must be a scar. Look of expertise. Placement overrides shadow. Pattern commits to motion. Footprint. Proud concrete.
I must be a scar. You should have been the paradise of form. A watt of beauty. Torn ear sounds like torn ear. The path leads across the field. I must be a scar on that road. Anything the gods want to send. Lack of attention to Greek myth. Cheese derives from trying too hard. The child is asleep in the back. Midair wail. The background mist. A system of articulation noted for its ability to transcend ______.
I must be a scar. The shovel and the fat eye. Taboos. Explicit Rex. Frank O'Hara. He doesn't come out to play on his birthday. He is not a scar. The idea one week later. The period one week after the comma. The comma one week after the hook, which says, "I must be a scar." Sad window. Melting domination of the period because the line is driven away from the one word device. You were never a scar. You were a sentence.
THE USE OF WHITE SPACE
The use of white space on the page was invented when you told the truth. This gave your words plenty of room to pronounce themselves, though your voice was embedded in a population explosion of pop culture and pop corn. This series of pops moved the white space beyond borders and taught you that hominoids were found in the honey pot before you had a chance to be the first to dip your fingers in there.
The use of white space ruined the formation of condolatory mambas that slithered between the sentences, until you had no choice but to redefine the linguistic node of the incorporated simulation that reformed reptilian need into sideboard fingers playing upon your keyboard. When white space was reconsidered by graphic ideologies, the absence of letters on pulp visualized a cause in four languages, though you know only two and accept the theory that people who speak more than one language remain sane and pure, their tongues licking the white space in search of other alphabets.
The use of white space is based on your need to construct what works as an expansion of what grows on the window ledge, your habit of pure seeing tied down on the page to waste a few trees and pile up the failed manuscripts full of blinding snow that might be the exact dimension unable to paste itself onto a printed sheet of paper that contains your sole confession toward forgiveness because the white space always stays ahead of what you need to write, this obvious moment wrapped in fumes from an extinct bottle of white-out, that force you haven’t smelled since the white space refused to be corrected years ago and the page got away with a typo that changed your life.
SIX FACES OF ADMITTANCE
First face inside the window of your elbow, guiding you toward confession and valuable costumes, branding you the mute commissioner who ran out of walking canes in time to take on a new face. Second face outside your nose, gently breathing on you so you feel the partnership is a boundary of heart and lung, water that spins your head and lets you feel the touch. The third face reflects off the glass and mouths silent words you are supposed to imitate, their meaning hidden in its wrinkled profile, the age of composition moving the glass our of your way. The fourth face belongs to a god who let you borrow it for the change of weather where raining mountains say you cannot be born again without multiple faces. The fifth face comes along as the stranger who removed your baby face by giving you a chance to be someone else in the picture frame.
The sixth face has not arrived. Waiting for it places confidence upon the first which returns again, this time shedding its skin by slapping you once, then flying away. As you stagger in surprise, the second face comforts you by growing a beard and taking you with it, your rough face now someone’s hairy face. This signals the third face to return as the long lost pharmacist who tries to read the prescription on the glass, but the fourth face censors what was and lies about what is going to be, the details of a godly face kept hidden from you when reflecting surfaces are taken away in time for the fifth face to bring you the ancient look of a dying, old man. This face doesn’t fit your frame, your skull, or even your mind that has worked hard to resemble every face the streets have brought. You pause to catch your breath and this makes room for the missing person, the sixth face, who is out there somewhere. You wait and the silence of looking like someone else calms the air, lowers the light, and lets you sit back in your favorite chair, whatever face you are wearing falling asleep as you doze off, wondering when the sixth face will come and what it will look like.
_____
Ray Gonzalez is the author of eleven books of poetry, including the forthcoming collection of prose poems, Cool Auditor (BOA Editions). He teaches in the MFA Program at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.
_____
RECONFIGURATIONS: A Journal for Poetics & Poetry / Literature & Culture, http://reconfigurations.blogspot.com/, ISSN: 1938-3592, Volume Three (2009): Immanence/ Imminence
_____
4 Poems
MILES
Weather as token flipped inside trumpet wig. Calibrated dimension invited the clear the subjective response where data annexes previous attempts to decipher the closed window. The staring is incomplete and involves ancient theory of magnetic fusion with vowels and feathers originating in abolished countries never charted or dreamed.
Favors instead of visions, dynamics of a clay bowl. Agreement is made to announce a handful of salt is more effective than touching the right buttons at the moment of closure. Several components were left out of the bomb invention amidst the flowers and trees and the moment of collision was hidden inside a book no one opened, minimizing shrapnel.
Composing a thesis. Careful examination of the staring individual discovers the blank page is the field beyond the staring, a meeting place for the salt grains from the hand and the pure confession moving out of the eye. If peace came out of the jigsaw puzzle, it was mistaken for a flock of birds entering the fire and emerging as planes of truth embedded in a sore, watering eyeball.
Artifact corruption, staged withdrawal, eyebrow embrace contradicted. Chirping sounds, humid armpits, angry digression revealing how the outline of the rejected biological father got there. The complete invitation would have included two jump ropes, a silver dollar, eight bottles of milk, and the perception everything is sensual and afraid.
Confession is ignored, windows drawn quietly. Calibrated dimension invited to declare transformation of the breast into a mountain imitation that does not allow climbing or the essential union of cell and hair. A few moments were given to the prized illumination that changed equations and corrupted the wires leading to the transformation of vocabularies.
Weather as metal token music, eyeball forgotten pickpocket. Mounted canvas, white sheet absolved of struggle between the plain and the creator signifies how often the geometrical kiss becomes the couple involved in mythic sins. History antithesis news arrow-shaped and hurtling toward uncreated space where the decision to completely erase the plot was made over a bowl of frozen shrimp.
Trumpet castigation, underwater ear, no end to wanting trouble, mystified union. The hand now empty of salt, holding onto the light that sperm gives when it is spilled at random, the letting forth not given a name because the calculations remain on a copy of the disc. The mind embrace is a fiction designed to thwart geniuses and allow the bare foot to accomplish syntax and move itself under the clouds without being noticed.
Enrapture fingers upheld. The size of the thumb has a great deal to do with this and it is about to reveal what really happened when the streets were plowed after blizzards renamed thought. Intervention where the white surface awaits composition declared without the fulcrum or bended knee. Soon twig, someday paper.
If the circus went home and gave itself away, the face paint would be washed off to create colorful patterns in the sink that would someday lead to an involvement and a flaw once removed from the diamond, the head bowed in grief, followed by discipline and threats, murmurs that don’t restart the system, dark centuries in the heart of arrogance, contradictions as churchyard crusades where no calibrated dimensions are allowed because they do not believe the cleanest text is the forgiven word that ignites desire.
The situation activates the senses even if confession is outdated and the first item to be stolen has to do with a signature and a way of recording how often it rained. Blame blast. If the language line is allowed to function and become a tricky text in the history of trickster manipulation, then a wasted habit and its retention takes place without matchbooks.
The weather that was lost in this was the environment in which to prove the idea that the complex geometry of messing with proper lyrical saturation is an act of conformity. Any kind of sorrow must be left out of the pages selected as guilty, though guilt is outlawed in the process of avant-garde proclamation. If only the shrewd approach was worth it, the suspenders of the fat man would hold.
It is the way the brain functions and pretends there is something extracted into the air to be pronounced holy and visionary, though human. What if every single word of every single line of every single stanza was blown-up and laughter shifted the earth’s axis? The true self is a stranger in this film. The oceanic self is a stranger in a roll of meat. The caustic self is a crayon in this shade of mistake. The boring self is a bore granted books on an earth without books.
Perhaps this list of things is simply a co-host and the philosophic dance is merely a troubled style of poetic stupidity that steals everything the tradition brought forth with a trumpet. If time out was an idea, then time in could be the next phase.
THE ONE WORD DEVICE
after Thomas Cook
I must be a scar. Glad window. Frozen domination of the period. Escarpment. The wheel used to spell "blood." I must be a scar. Look of expertise. Placement overrides shadow. Pattern commits to motion. Footprint. Proud concrete.
I must be a scar. You should have been the paradise of form. A watt of beauty. Torn ear sounds like torn ear. The path leads across the field. I must be a scar on that road. Anything the gods want to send. Lack of attention to Greek myth. Cheese derives from trying too hard. The child is asleep in the back. Midair wail. The background mist. A system of articulation noted for its ability to transcend ______.
I must be a scar. The shovel and the fat eye. Taboos. Explicit Rex. Frank O'Hara. He doesn't come out to play on his birthday. He is not a scar. The idea one week later. The period one week after the comma. The comma one week after the hook, which says, "I must be a scar." Sad window. Melting domination of the period because the line is driven away from the one word device. You were never a scar. You were a sentence.
THE USE OF WHITE SPACE
The use of white space on the page was invented when you told the truth. This gave your words plenty of room to pronounce themselves, though your voice was embedded in a population explosion of pop culture and pop corn. This series of pops moved the white space beyond borders and taught you that hominoids were found in the honey pot before you had a chance to be the first to dip your fingers in there.
The use of white space ruined the formation of condolatory mambas that slithered between the sentences, until you had no choice but to redefine the linguistic node of the incorporated simulation that reformed reptilian need into sideboard fingers playing upon your keyboard. When white space was reconsidered by graphic ideologies, the absence of letters on pulp visualized a cause in four languages, though you know only two and accept the theory that people who speak more than one language remain sane and pure, their tongues licking the white space in search of other alphabets.
The use of white space is based on your need to construct what works as an expansion of what grows on the window ledge, your habit of pure seeing tied down on the page to waste a few trees and pile up the failed manuscripts full of blinding snow that might be the exact dimension unable to paste itself onto a printed sheet of paper that contains your sole confession toward forgiveness because the white space always stays ahead of what you need to write, this obvious moment wrapped in fumes from an extinct bottle of white-out, that force you haven’t smelled since the white space refused to be corrected years ago and the page got away with a typo that changed your life.
SIX FACES OF ADMITTANCE
First face inside the window of your elbow, guiding you toward confession and valuable costumes, branding you the mute commissioner who ran out of walking canes in time to take on a new face. Second face outside your nose, gently breathing on you so you feel the partnership is a boundary of heart and lung, water that spins your head and lets you feel the touch. The third face reflects off the glass and mouths silent words you are supposed to imitate, their meaning hidden in its wrinkled profile, the age of composition moving the glass our of your way. The fourth face belongs to a god who let you borrow it for the change of weather where raining mountains say you cannot be born again without multiple faces. The fifth face comes along as the stranger who removed your baby face by giving you a chance to be someone else in the picture frame.
The sixth face has not arrived. Waiting for it places confidence upon the first which returns again, this time shedding its skin by slapping you once, then flying away. As you stagger in surprise, the second face comforts you by growing a beard and taking you with it, your rough face now someone’s hairy face. This signals the third face to return as the long lost pharmacist who tries to read the prescription on the glass, but the fourth face censors what was and lies about what is going to be, the details of a godly face kept hidden from you when reflecting surfaces are taken away in time for the fifth face to bring you the ancient look of a dying, old man. This face doesn’t fit your frame, your skull, or even your mind that has worked hard to resemble every face the streets have brought. You pause to catch your breath and this makes room for the missing person, the sixth face, who is out there somewhere. You wait and the silence of looking like someone else calms the air, lowers the light, and lets you sit back in your favorite chair, whatever face you are wearing falling asleep as you doze off, wondering when the sixth face will come and what it will look like.
_____
Ray Gonzalez is the author of eleven books of poetry, including the forthcoming collection of prose poems, Cool Auditor (BOA Editions). He teaches in the MFA Program at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.
_____
RECONFIGURATIONS: A Journal for Poetics & Poetry / Literature & Culture, http://reconfigurations.blogspot.com/, ISSN: 1938-3592, Volume Three (2009): Immanence/ Imminence
_____
Jeff Harrison, "Knots of Hilda Doolittle"
Jeff Harrison
Knots of Hilda Doolittle
HERMETIC DEFINITION
to tie a Bowline Knot
Bowline is tied to:
swift thru dolorous lessers
form an eye
eye is tied to:
ships (schooners) affrighted
with the standing part
of the rope running underneath.
run the free end thru the
dolorous lessers swiftly, then
thru the eye (wide, affrighted
by schooners), making a loop
below said eye. take a turn
around
the standing part & feed
the free end back down
the eye & hold there.
pull standing part to tighten knot.
THE HEDGEHOG
beware! the Square Knot will untie
itself under movement. do not trust
the Square Knot to join two ropes
together. the Square Knot will capsize
under a heavy load. when tying the Square
Knot, both parts of the rope must exit
together. whence the untrustworthiness
and trickiness of the Square Knot? gather
around: but no, I will breathe not a word,
not until the Double Fisherman runs out of
rope.
these are the words he was at last compelled to write.
HYMEN
to tie an Anchor Bend Knot,
make two turns around
the shackle, leaving turns
open. knots may evade us,
as our own features are
less familiar to us, to our.
take a half-turn around
the standing line and
feed the free end thru
the turns and pull tight.
the Anchor Bend Knot was a ruin awash in wilderness when I found it.
_____
Jeff Harrison has publications from MAG Press, Writers Forum, Persistencia Press, and Furniture Press. He has two e-books at xPress(ed), and one at Blazevox. His poetry has appeared in The Hay(na)ku Anthology Vol. II, Sentence: a Journal of Prose Poetics, Xerography, Moria, NOON: journal of the short poem, and elsewhere. More of his poems may be read here.
_____
RECONFIGURATIONS: A Journal for Poetics & Poetry / Literature & Culture, http://reconfigurations.blogspot.com/, ISSN: 1938-3592, Volume Three (2009): Immanence/ Imminence
_____
Knots of Hilda Doolittle
HERMETIC DEFINITION
to tie a Bowline Knot
Bowline is tied to:
swift thru dolorous lessers
form an eye
eye is tied to:
ships (schooners) affrighted
with the standing part
of the rope running underneath.
run the free end thru the
dolorous lessers swiftly, then
thru the eye (wide, affrighted
by schooners), making a loop
below said eye. take a turn
around
the standing part & feed
the free end back down
the eye & hold there.
pull standing part to tighten knot.
THE HEDGEHOG
beware! the Square Knot will untie
itself under movement. do not trust
the Square Knot to join two ropes
together. the Square Knot will capsize
under a heavy load. when tying the Square
Knot, both parts of the rope must exit
together. whence the untrustworthiness
and trickiness of the Square Knot? gather
around: but no, I will breathe not a word,
not until the Double Fisherman runs out of
rope.
these are the words he was at last compelled to write.
HYMEN
to tie an Anchor Bend Knot,
make two turns around
the shackle, leaving turns
open. knots may evade us,
as our own features are
less familiar to us, to our.
take a half-turn around
the standing line and
feed the free end thru
the turns and pull tight.
the Anchor Bend Knot was a ruin awash in wilderness when I found it.
_____
Jeff Harrison has publications from MAG Press, Writers Forum, Persistencia Press, and Furniture Press. He has two e-books at xPress(ed), and one at Blazevox. His poetry has appeared in The Hay(na)ku Anthology Vol. II, Sentence: a Journal of Prose Poetics, Xerography, Moria, NOON: journal of the short poem, and elsewhere. More of his poems may be read here.
_____
RECONFIGURATIONS: A Journal for Poetics & Poetry / Literature & Culture, http://reconfigurations.blogspot.com/, ISSN: 1938-3592, Volume Three (2009): Immanence/ Imminence
_____
Mary Kasimor, "a vase" & "xxxv"
Mary Kasimor
a vase & xxxv
a vase
an illustrious mind Detachable
past from the shape of Her children
a lustered star
The origin of time
they Watched pots
it’s almost over / endings Make me cry
as the grass grows What time is It
Faded flowers in the skin
smashed Fur in the gutter
summer’s leaves what time is It familiar
changes / the bed Was changed
you Seem different / your beard is gray
let’s move Away
the End of time
in disrepair / I fell hundreds Of miles
Still timing was dissimilar / rust needed
oil never sleeps Never awakens thoughts
doors closed
people Changed
places dancers skimmed rivers dried Up
fish flew / Red tattered Pink the earring
lost the locket found the People Dissolved
tears Privacy on display
don’t Say
anything chased Around the vase
dead finger Nails continue
growing studying for the test Isn’t
Different / But we think it’s dogs
summer Leaves
xxxv
I carve
blood on my hands
bone
shaping
I write about ambiguity
& what is hidden
if I could divide & reunite
cubism an act of faith
circles abundance
_____
Mary Kasimor has been writing poetry for many years, and her work has evolved from the lyrical narrative to more experimental styles. Her poetry has been published in many journals, including Otoliths, Moria, MIPOesias, Bird Dog, GutCult, BlazeVox2k3, How2, and Big Bridge, among others. Her book, silk string arias, was published by BlazeVox Books. She also has written book reviews for Jacket.
_____
RECONFIGURATIONS: A Journal for Poetics & Poetry / Literature & Culture, http://reconfigurations.blogspot.com/, ISSN: 1938-3592, Volume Three (2009): Immanence/ Imminence
_____
a vase & xxxv
a vase
an illustrious mind Detachable
past from the shape of Her children
a lustered star
The origin of time
they Watched pots
it’s almost over / endings Make me cry
as the grass grows What time is It
Faded flowers in the skin
smashed Fur in the gutter
summer’s leaves what time is It familiar
changes / the bed Was changed
you Seem different / your beard is gray
let’s move Away
the End of time
in disrepair / I fell hundreds Of miles
Still timing was dissimilar / rust needed
oil never sleeps Never awakens thoughts
doors closed
people Changed
places dancers skimmed rivers dried Up
fish flew / Red tattered Pink the earring
lost the locket found the People Dissolved
tears Privacy on display
don’t Say
anything chased Around the vase
dead finger Nails continue
growing studying for the test Isn’t
Different / But we think it’s dogs
summer Leaves
xxxv
I carve
blood on my hands
bone
shaping
I write about ambiguity
& what is hidden
if I could divide & reunite
cubism an act of faith
circles abundance
_____
Mary Kasimor has been writing poetry for many years, and her work has evolved from the lyrical narrative to more experimental styles. Her poetry has been published in many journals, including Otoliths, Moria, MIPOesias, Bird Dog, GutCult, BlazeVox2k3, How2, and Big Bridge, among others. Her book, silk string arias, was published by BlazeVox Books. She also has written book reviews for Jacket.
_____
RECONFIGURATIONS: A Journal for Poetics & Poetry / Literature & Culture, http://reconfigurations.blogspot.com/, ISSN: 1938-3592, Volume Three (2009): Immanence/ Imminence
_____
Penn Kemp, "Dream Sequins (i & ii)"
Penn Kemp
Dream Sequins
(i)
Imagine you are lying in bed, letting thoughts float.
All is translation, carried across, the metaphor of
being. Being here, I am translated there. Where?
Only the shadow knows. The words speak for each
other and themselves. They tumble in their sphere,
happily clunking into and through each other. Hue
beyond spectrum spreads into sound and heat. Who
could doubt the veracity of such tangibly felt reality?
Not in the dream I who am fully there living sweet
rounds that seem so perfectly whole I could spend
life here. Nothing conjures any outside I can imagine
beyond the curved boundaries of this floating world.
(ii)
Dream so solid, how does it dissolve into instant
frayed fragments, an image waning, voice trailing
off. Time collapsed offers multiple spheres, entries
along the path between past, present, possible futures.
Interjections interrupt the trail we conceive as real,
the present as gift, as presence, as the only possible
way through, way in. Memories weigh in as if
they were real. Futures impinge as if secure. As if,
the massif. Possibilities encroach, almost solid, almost
real.
_____
Canadian poet, performer and playwright Penn Kemp has published twenty-five books of poetry & drama and has produced six plays & ten CDs, including Canada’s first poetry CD-ROM and several award-winning videopoems. She performs in festivals around the world. Her Muse News is renewed monthly on http://www.mytown.ca/pennletters/ and on http://facebook.com/pages/Penn-Kemp/126450531030?created. Penn can also be heard on myspace.com/pennkemp and http://www.mytown.ca/pennkemp/. Penn is the Canada Council Writer-in-Residence at the University of Western Ontario for 2009-10. As part of the residency, Penn is hosting Gathering Voices on Radio Western, CHRW 94.9 FM. Archives of past interviews, writing exercises and Penn’s sound operas are now available on www.chrwradio.com/talk/gatheringvoices.
_____
RECONFIGURATIONS: A Journal for Poetics & Poetry / Literature & Culture, http://reconfigurations.blogspot.com/, ISSN: 1938-3592, Volume Three (2009): Immanence/ Imminence
_____
Dream Sequins
(i)
Imagine you are lying in bed, letting thoughts float.
All is translation, carried across, the metaphor of
being. Being here, I am translated there. Where?
Only the shadow knows. The words speak for each
other and themselves. They tumble in their sphere,
happily clunking into and through each other. Hue
beyond spectrum spreads into sound and heat. Who
could doubt the veracity of such tangibly felt reality?
Not in the dream I who am fully there living sweet
rounds that seem so perfectly whole I could spend
life here. Nothing conjures any outside I can imagine
beyond the curved boundaries of this floating world.
(ii)
Dream so solid, how does it dissolve into instant
frayed fragments, an image waning, voice trailing
off. Time collapsed offers multiple spheres, entries
along the path between past, present, possible futures.
Interjections interrupt the trail we conceive as real,
the present as gift, as presence, as the only possible
way through, way in. Memories weigh in as if
they were real. Futures impinge as if secure. As if,
the massif. Possibilities encroach, almost solid, almost
real.
_____
Canadian poet, performer and playwright Penn Kemp has published twenty-five books of poetry & drama and has produced six plays & ten CDs, including Canada’s first poetry CD-ROM and several award-winning videopoems. She performs in festivals around the world. Her Muse News is renewed monthly on http://www.mytown.ca/pennletters/ and on http://facebook.com/pages/Penn-Kemp/126450531030?created. Penn can also be heard on myspace.com/pennkemp and http://www.mytown.ca/pennkemp/. Penn is the Canada Council Writer-in-Residence at the University of Western Ontario for 2009-10. As part of the residency, Penn is hosting Gathering Voices on Radio Western, CHRW 94.9 FM. Archives of past interviews, writing exercises and Penn’s sound operas are now available on www.chrwradio.com/talk/gatheringvoices.
_____
RECONFIGURATIONS: A Journal for Poetics & Poetry / Literature & Culture, http://reconfigurations.blogspot.com/, ISSN: 1938-3592, Volume Three (2009): Immanence/ Imminence
_____
Camille Martin, "double sonnets"
Camille Martin
double sonnets
flagrant green and blue, smooth as a baby’s
earlobe, i’m guessing. the sun taunts, let us pretend
that you do not exist, except for your terribly useless
words. now who’s reaping jigsaw puzzle pieces?
windows! something gets lost in the translation,
and it’s not me, friend. the temptation is to repeat, to
repeat in rainfall (aptly) and only then do the dance
that has steadily been surfacing in a text-
bubble, taking advantage of the opportunity to make
a surprise entrance. windows! just so we’re all
clear, this morning i slipped in a puddle
of milk, but where did it go? a prognosticating
horse, where did it come from? windows! muddy,
streaked, crystalline, apprehended in a flash. lucid
errors tinted blue vibrato. i say hello thousands
of times a day. colours stand out against
colours they can’t see. like that. i hoard, greedily
hoard parts of broken toys in the holds below deck. then
i casually swab the deck, listening for the various
parts of the toys to decide they will follow
tradition, gloriously, but will they still be toys?
if puns like surfacing so much, why
are so many in the same category as a heartbeat
or a breath? windows! they flatter, they whittle
away knife blades to nothing. they remember vistas
in tuscany painters die for. they whisper,
“who opens me opens,” all the while hoarding
their own dim future in broad daylight.
* * *
re-inventing stairs takes a plot as subtle
as dust drifting onto a slope in undecided space:
position is everything. even the drift of stars
implies a story. gather enough stories and some
get buried forever in urns. the chosen know
that memory and sunlight forever walk hand
in hand, but they keep it a secret. they also
know that neither is true, and that both
weave their mirrors as loosely as spider webs.
they’d be shocked if the webs could reflect
the extravagance of a clear sky. but they do,
the reflection broken by more ripples than words
to describe water. in the words of an old saying,
the lake shifts its eyes in light of the hill. shifting
the alphabet is chancy, like the judicial system
of a virus. how soon vapour driven by chance forgets.
the gift of speech is soon followed by remainders
of debris. the creature remains hopeful, only to hear
an old echo on the tundra: “i am your voice
and i have your vote.” once again, frostbitten trees
as old as thieving birds that sing of flight.
even echoes of song aren’t the best antiseptic,
but then isn’t all life sacrosanct, so to speak?
thus embellished with disease, warriors would like
to be able to say they understand their spoils.
but what they really want to fathom,
they killed in battle.
* * *
let us pretend, though our philosophy
limps. a dragonfly constellation twinkles
like a photographic strobe in an attic. someone
(does it really need to be
someone?) snips the picture to simulate
the true life of the room. and why not, when
bedrock shakes even the far side of a life
of a life sitting comfortably, waiting
for the swift synapses of fleas traveling ocean
currents. winds buffet feathers. feathers buffet
parrots to no avail. parrots have their own
story, gypsy children walking across
a pasture and into an elevator. closure
in all its forms replaces
sunlight slanting through windows at crazy
angles. blood-sucking shepherds
roam the steppes. there is no hope
for movies or zombie genetics. try
again. a robber strides out of a saloon.
he starts changing the light bulbs of trees.
a doll takes his place playing cards.
tiny creatures curl up in the men’s ears.
a hush falls over the artificial room.
guard rails slowly rot as the elevator
glides along a catwalk, ruminating.
would it be a horrible mistake?
pagodas instead of pine trees?
_____
Camille Martin, a Toronto poet and collage artist, is the author of Sonnets (Shearsman Books, forthcoming in 2010) and Codes of Public Sleep (BookThug, 2007). Her works-in-progress are a collection of double sonnets and a long poem based on her Acadian/Cajun heritage. Her website is http://www.rogueembryo.wordpress.com
_____
RECONFIGURATIONS: A Journal for Poetics & Poetry / Literature & Culture, http://reconfigurations.blogspot.com/, ISSN: 1938-3592, Volume Three (2009): Immanence/ Imminence
_____
double sonnets
flagrant green and blue, smooth as a baby’s
earlobe, i’m guessing. the sun taunts, let us pretend
that you do not exist, except for your terribly useless
words. now who’s reaping jigsaw puzzle pieces?
windows! something gets lost in the translation,
and it’s not me, friend. the temptation is to repeat, to
repeat in rainfall (aptly) and only then do the dance
that has steadily been surfacing in a text-
bubble, taking advantage of the opportunity to make
a surprise entrance. windows! just so we’re all
clear, this morning i slipped in a puddle
of milk, but where did it go? a prognosticating
horse, where did it come from? windows! muddy,
streaked, crystalline, apprehended in a flash. lucid
errors tinted blue vibrato. i say hello thousands
of times a day. colours stand out against
colours they can’t see. like that. i hoard, greedily
hoard parts of broken toys in the holds below deck. then
i casually swab the deck, listening for the various
parts of the toys to decide they will follow
tradition, gloriously, but will they still be toys?
if puns like surfacing so much, why
are so many in the same category as a heartbeat
or a breath? windows! they flatter, they whittle
away knife blades to nothing. they remember vistas
in tuscany painters die for. they whisper,
“who opens me opens,” all the while hoarding
their own dim future in broad daylight.
* * *
re-inventing stairs takes a plot as subtle
as dust drifting onto a slope in undecided space:
position is everything. even the drift of stars
implies a story. gather enough stories and some
get buried forever in urns. the chosen know
that memory and sunlight forever walk hand
in hand, but they keep it a secret. they also
know that neither is true, and that both
weave their mirrors as loosely as spider webs.
they’d be shocked if the webs could reflect
the extravagance of a clear sky. but they do,
the reflection broken by more ripples than words
to describe water. in the words of an old saying,
the lake shifts its eyes in light of the hill. shifting
the alphabet is chancy, like the judicial system
of a virus. how soon vapour driven by chance forgets.
the gift of speech is soon followed by remainders
of debris. the creature remains hopeful, only to hear
an old echo on the tundra: “i am your voice
and i have your vote.” once again, frostbitten trees
as old as thieving birds that sing of flight.
even echoes of song aren’t the best antiseptic,
but then isn’t all life sacrosanct, so to speak?
thus embellished with disease, warriors would like
to be able to say they understand their spoils.
but what they really want to fathom,
they killed in battle.
* * *
let us pretend, though our philosophy
limps. a dragonfly constellation twinkles
like a photographic strobe in an attic. someone
(does it really need to be
someone?) snips the picture to simulate
the true life of the room. and why not, when
bedrock shakes even the far side of a life
of a life sitting comfortably, waiting
for the swift synapses of fleas traveling ocean
currents. winds buffet feathers. feathers buffet
parrots to no avail. parrots have their own
story, gypsy children walking across
a pasture and into an elevator. closure
in all its forms replaces
sunlight slanting through windows at crazy
angles. blood-sucking shepherds
roam the steppes. there is no hope
for movies or zombie genetics. try
again. a robber strides out of a saloon.
he starts changing the light bulbs of trees.
a doll takes his place playing cards.
tiny creatures curl up in the men’s ears.
a hush falls over the artificial room.
guard rails slowly rot as the elevator
glides along a catwalk, ruminating.
would it be a horrible mistake?
pagodas instead of pine trees?
_____
Camille Martin, a Toronto poet and collage artist, is the author of Sonnets (Shearsman Books, forthcoming in 2010) and Codes of Public Sleep (BookThug, 2007). Her works-in-progress are a collection of double sonnets and a long poem based on her Acadian/Cajun heritage. Her website is http://www.rogueembryo.wordpress.com
_____
RECONFIGURATIONS: A Journal for Poetics & Poetry / Literature & Culture, http://reconfigurations.blogspot.com/, ISSN: 1938-3592, Volume Three (2009): Immanence/ Imminence
_____
Jonathan Minton, "4 Poems"
Jonathan Minton
4 Poems
Lazarus, in his wonder, in his keeping
He emerged from the tomb mouthing the word bekos and hungry for bread. He looked to the ocean for the origins of yeast and discovered kombucha, cellular fuels, ambient foods, and all manner of natural flora for the small intestine. When satisfied, he studied the habits of children and mimicked their more emphatic cries—one for fruit, two for snake, three for bird of prey. But his games became difficult, complicated by the dangerous assortment of knives and spears arranged as teeth in honor of an imaginary leviathan. He placed his faith in a small spherical object he simply called sphere. When his faith was tested, he thought of a king in his throne room—the king of green blooms, the king of baskets and calves. When his words would stick in his throat, or cling too closely to his hands, he discovered salts to treat the ensuing nausea. But the feeling would always return, and everyone would again witness his anxious attempts to build small boats out of grass and osprey feathers, placing a small object from his room in each one. In time, he learned to live quietly, and in moderate health, keeping a slip of paper, with the word apple written in its center, pressed to the inside of his cheek.
Lazarus, before the attendant masses
“The body is a noun, a surplus, a foot taking root where it steps. The body is a verb whose refrain encircles its nest, a word signifying the two while in flight. But its place of origin is seldom known, and one must learn to misplace, to remember the numerous errors before their yield, before our yielding.”
“What, for instance, is the water of the white of an egg? What is the oil of its yoke, or the paper-thin membrane of its shell? I have said that an egg settles before a bird unsettles it. I have said that even if the nettle stings, the pain is not permanent, and its stem can be rendered as both paper and ink if care is taken. With little cultivation, the superfluities in the body that the coldness and moisture of winter have left behind can be dissolved as salt.”
“I have said that our intentions will always drip from stem to ground, that our best uniforms are still chemical. In some parts of the kingdom, this residue is called ‘profit,’ and in others it is called ‘stranger.’ There is always another word for this, but on our last day of naming, soldiers will circle the perimeter of what was once the capital. In its center, the virgins will remove the curtains from their room. In their weddings, the windows and mirrors will be arranged so that the room consists of nothing but sun, as if the sun is really a hole in the vault of heaven, as if the vault of heaven is the one bright spot.”
Poem for Andy Kaufman
1
In his borrowed voice, the character begins by speaking
about working in a neighborhood downtown
where the darkest corners of the streets
converge in cinematic angles.
He pretends not to notice the growth of lawn chairs
in the brighter lengths.
2
(When asked to explain
he nervously unbuttons his jacket
and mentions the parable of the twin luxury sofas.)
(In the parable, a thief becomes famous
and exits the scene as a ghost.
Later, he will enter the city as if he were real.)
(Among so many young gods
wealth must accumulate, unnoticed,
in the alleys behind the palace.)
(The body, in public, is political.)
(His response to any question is always yes.)
(The city, he insists, is liquid.)
3
If the body signifies sorrow, or if it is merely the framework…
If an eagle descends with one cervatillo hung in its claws…
If the letter B drops as an omen from its beak…
If his speeches end when the walls of the city begin…
If his beloved nation is missing, and the others, entirely in themselves…
If the thief still blushes, if his cell isn’t finished….
His story returns to its tree and calls down from a place that is.
4
The character begins by speaking
The character begins by speaking
In the parable, a thief becomes famous
In the parable, a thief becomes famous
By speaking, the body is political
By speaking, the body is political
By speaking the letter B drops as an omen
By speaking the letter B drops as an omen
If the letter B, the letter B
If the character begins as an omen, as an omen
In the parable, in the parable
A thief becomes famous, becomes famous
5
The character begins with the letter B,
as brawn is soused, while those in wine steep.
Each time he speaks a blight returns to the notes for the script,
even when clipped at the right angle.
A physical examination of B reveals a pictograph
in the shape of floor plans for the new Bank of America.
BBC weather maps, he says, are of limited use, as are Egyptian tablets.
What enters our consciousness is binding. This is the same as fate.
Even as he says this he is sick with B, sick with the spirit
of raw-throated boat men, and their green branches
cut below the thorn you see, the one you don’t.
6
The character begins again as before a window
absent of witnesses. He is riddled, but unguarded,
as if he could encircle each question with a park,
or place each one as an egg, delicately, beneath the window
through which he enters the city. This is the common response.
In appearing, he is figured in kind, as in a park.
A crowd gathers where the center is expected.
He sits elsewhere, through the brightest parts,
with his tongue out of place, his eyes in their wonder.
Poem for Andy Kaufman
Call me Black Jack Hayes, the Bell Ringer, the Hand Clap Attacker, and master of the flying moonsault body press. Behind this tiger mask my equilibrium is perfect. When my critics say “look closer,” this will satisfy them. I can guarantee you one thing is certain, because I’m pointing to the object hidden behind your back. You intend its purpose each time you sit or stand, each time you hold it to your mouth or place it by the door. Have I any other idea of it? Each day I suspect it, and the pain it brings me each morning. I know I‘ve felt pain in this arm.
* * *
Call me the Back Alley Bully, El Samurai, the Five Fingered Space Crusader. The pressure I’m applying is to the wrist and to the arm bent into the chest. My gaze is always inverted, locked into place, before dropping straight down to the foundation of all my action. Someday these rings that have been here my whole life may disclose themselves as something different and confound me. But what reason do I have now, even when I cannot see, to doubt what I hold by its throat? When it calls itself unfortunate, I’ll name it the thief.
* * *
Call me the Ice Pick Kid, Mr. Sayonara, the Death Valley Bomber. What you’re about to see is the sunset flip, the belly to back brain buster, and reverse facelock. What you’re about to see is the real attack, with the thumb to the throat. It will be as if you were looking at a large screen, or a brightly painted stage, so that even from the back of the room you will recognize it. You will see the wounded man when you withdraw, just as if you were moving closer. If anything happens to contradict this knowledge, it will thereby strike you as if you already knew it.
* * *
Call me the Kayfabe Heel, the Bitter Pill, the Kick and the Hiss in the back of your throat. You know the character of my mistakes. You know what follows my every proposition. I am staging this as our last scene, as taken from the book of traumatized names. It was true when I first gave it to you, and true when you took it instead as the book of your hands, throat, and eyes. You will keep this book by the door, ready for the day when the hinges no longer work.
_____
Jonathan Minton lives with his wife Allison in Weston, West Virginia, where he is an Assistant Professor of English at Glenville State College. His chapbooks include Lost Languages (Long Leaf Press) and In Gesture (Structa Press). His poetry and reviews have appeared recently in Coconut, Castagraf, Eratio, Columbia Poetry Review, Free Verse, and the recent anthologies Oh One Arrow and Crazed by the Sun. He edits the online literary journal Word For/Word (www.wordforword.info).
_____
RECONFIGURATIONS: A Journal for Poetics & Poetry / Literature & Culture, http://reconfigurations.blogspot.com/, ISSN: 1938-3592, Volume Three (2009): Immanence/ Imminence
_____
4 Poems
Lazarus, in his wonder, in his keeping
He emerged from the tomb mouthing the word bekos and hungry for bread. He looked to the ocean for the origins of yeast and discovered kombucha, cellular fuels, ambient foods, and all manner of natural flora for the small intestine. When satisfied, he studied the habits of children and mimicked their more emphatic cries—one for fruit, two for snake, three for bird of prey. But his games became difficult, complicated by the dangerous assortment of knives and spears arranged as teeth in honor of an imaginary leviathan. He placed his faith in a small spherical object he simply called sphere. When his faith was tested, he thought of a king in his throne room—the king of green blooms, the king of baskets and calves. When his words would stick in his throat, or cling too closely to his hands, he discovered salts to treat the ensuing nausea. But the feeling would always return, and everyone would again witness his anxious attempts to build small boats out of grass and osprey feathers, placing a small object from his room in each one. In time, he learned to live quietly, and in moderate health, keeping a slip of paper, with the word apple written in its center, pressed to the inside of his cheek.
Lazarus, before the attendant masses
“The body is a noun, a surplus, a foot taking root where it steps. The body is a verb whose refrain encircles its nest, a word signifying the two while in flight. But its place of origin is seldom known, and one must learn to misplace, to remember the numerous errors before their yield, before our yielding.”
“What, for instance, is the water of the white of an egg? What is the oil of its yoke, or the paper-thin membrane of its shell? I have said that an egg settles before a bird unsettles it. I have said that even if the nettle stings, the pain is not permanent, and its stem can be rendered as both paper and ink if care is taken. With little cultivation, the superfluities in the body that the coldness and moisture of winter have left behind can be dissolved as salt.”
“I have said that our intentions will always drip from stem to ground, that our best uniforms are still chemical. In some parts of the kingdom, this residue is called ‘profit,’ and in others it is called ‘stranger.’ There is always another word for this, but on our last day of naming, soldiers will circle the perimeter of what was once the capital. In its center, the virgins will remove the curtains from their room. In their weddings, the windows and mirrors will be arranged so that the room consists of nothing but sun, as if the sun is really a hole in the vault of heaven, as if the vault of heaven is the one bright spot.”
Poem for Andy Kaufman
1
In his borrowed voice, the character begins by speaking
about working in a neighborhood downtown
where the darkest corners of the streets
converge in cinematic angles.
He pretends not to notice the growth of lawn chairs
in the brighter lengths.
2
(When asked to explain
he nervously unbuttons his jacket
and mentions the parable of the twin luxury sofas.)
(In the parable, a thief becomes famous
and exits the scene as a ghost.
Later, he will enter the city as if he were real.)
(Among so many young gods
wealth must accumulate, unnoticed,
in the alleys behind the palace.)
(The body, in public, is political.)
(His response to any question is always yes.)
(The city, he insists, is liquid.)
3
If the body signifies sorrow, or if it is merely the framework…
If an eagle descends with one cervatillo hung in its claws…
If the letter B drops as an omen from its beak…
If his speeches end when the walls of the city begin…
If his beloved nation is missing, and the others, entirely in themselves…
If the thief still blushes, if his cell isn’t finished….
His story returns to its tree and calls down from a place that is.
4
The character begins by speaking
The character begins by speaking
In the parable, a thief becomes famous
In the parable, a thief becomes famous
By speaking, the body is political
By speaking, the body is political
By speaking the letter B drops as an omen
By speaking the letter B drops as an omen
If the letter B, the letter B
If the character begins as an omen, as an omen
In the parable, in the parable
A thief becomes famous, becomes famous
5
The character begins with the letter B,
as brawn is soused, while those in wine steep.
Each time he speaks a blight returns to the notes for the script,
even when clipped at the right angle.
A physical examination of B reveals a pictograph
in the shape of floor plans for the new Bank of America.
BBC weather maps, he says, are of limited use, as are Egyptian tablets.
What enters our consciousness is binding. This is the same as fate.
Even as he says this he is sick with B, sick with the spirit
of raw-throated boat men, and their green branches
cut below the thorn you see, the one you don’t.
6
The character begins again as before a window
absent of witnesses. He is riddled, but unguarded,
as if he could encircle each question with a park,
or place each one as an egg, delicately, beneath the window
through which he enters the city. This is the common response.
In appearing, he is figured in kind, as in a park.
A crowd gathers where the center is expected.
He sits elsewhere, through the brightest parts,
with his tongue out of place, his eyes in their wonder.
Poem for Andy Kaufman
Call me Black Jack Hayes, the Bell Ringer, the Hand Clap Attacker, and master of the flying moonsault body press. Behind this tiger mask my equilibrium is perfect. When my critics say “look closer,” this will satisfy them. I can guarantee you one thing is certain, because I’m pointing to the object hidden behind your back. You intend its purpose each time you sit or stand, each time you hold it to your mouth or place it by the door. Have I any other idea of it? Each day I suspect it, and the pain it brings me each morning. I know I‘ve felt pain in this arm.
* * *
Call me the Back Alley Bully, El Samurai, the Five Fingered Space Crusader. The pressure I’m applying is to the wrist and to the arm bent into the chest. My gaze is always inverted, locked into place, before dropping straight down to the foundation of all my action. Someday these rings that have been here my whole life may disclose themselves as something different and confound me. But what reason do I have now, even when I cannot see, to doubt what I hold by its throat? When it calls itself unfortunate, I’ll name it the thief.
* * *
Call me the Ice Pick Kid, Mr. Sayonara, the Death Valley Bomber. What you’re about to see is the sunset flip, the belly to back brain buster, and reverse facelock. What you’re about to see is the real attack, with the thumb to the throat. It will be as if you were looking at a large screen, or a brightly painted stage, so that even from the back of the room you will recognize it. You will see the wounded man when you withdraw, just as if you were moving closer. If anything happens to contradict this knowledge, it will thereby strike you as if you already knew it.
* * *
Call me the Kayfabe Heel, the Bitter Pill, the Kick and the Hiss in the back of your throat. You know the character of my mistakes. You know what follows my every proposition. I am staging this as our last scene, as taken from the book of traumatized names. It was true when I first gave it to you, and true when you took it instead as the book of your hands, throat, and eyes. You will keep this book by the door, ready for the day when the hinges no longer work.
_____
Jonathan Minton lives with his wife Allison in Weston, West Virginia, where he is an Assistant Professor of English at Glenville State College. His chapbooks include Lost Languages (Long Leaf Press) and In Gesture (Structa Press). His poetry and reviews have appeared recently in Coconut, Castagraf, Eratio, Columbia Poetry Review, Free Verse, and the recent anthologies Oh One Arrow and Crazed by the Sun. He edits the online literary journal Word For/Word (www.wordforword.info).
_____
RECONFIGURATIONS: A Journal for Poetics & Poetry / Literature & Culture, http://reconfigurations.blogspot.com/, ISSN: 1938-3592, Volume Three (2009): Immanence/ Imminence
_____
Robert Mittenthal, "Memory Play" & "Severance"
Robert Mittenthal
Memory Play
1. The withers of cold. Northern Spy or Williams Pride next to Sunshine Blue or muted berry. Like a captive crow with a slight case of experience each improvised sound a phrase written on long walks.
2. To keep the book open the trick is to turn the page, to see what is written. It sits here saying itself all over again. A Phantom Limb on facing pages set to prefer perfection.
3. Betrayal of a bottom no one can stand. So we sat there blood running to purity, a palimpsest whose love handles such things. Magnolia buds in beige infer a distant signal to flower. The essence of liquid primed or newly stretched. Forming white forms islands of grey, driftwood of a slender vocabulary. A mouth open to dwell on lips until collecting weeds its habit.
4. Each adjective stands for a mode of kneeling. Definition of an I that bends. A dominion all propped up. Bright line seeks parallel to conquer its divide. Usefully vicious he sticks it to them. Those who think they see are burnished in the calm of fracture. A forgotten peril whose script reproves us.
5. The new barbarians: they wove themselves bowties of copper & distributed network share.
6. Displaced eyes no longer intersect in courtyards. The open window to a city that once held our attention. Naked to what remains outside, an analog rewinds to play. Its diagrammed hand can’t stand for itself. The store of images magnificent in waiting.
7. The hand as map finally tucks under Mackinaw, bridge to the north that shifts light above Huron. Counting raindrops we lay soft as yellow and yellow as soft. Buttercups below the threshold of feeling. Footprints in sand behind us. As a sleight of hand, thought is reduced to what translates in the eye. Which leaves the other handle on the wall of language.
8. A monk connects a shrine to the threads of chance. 1000 scraps of paper. An abstract mass suddenly in the mouth. A mountain of caramel which both attracts and repels. When the alarm goes off he opens a small carton of chocolate milk. Excuse me, he says, I am very bad. With this, one may take pleasure in his fasting.
9. Cloisters or compartments whose divisions roil us. Logic adrift in the sounds of arrival and departure. We live between poles – each parcel a vast expanse. As ‘it’ goes (so do we) eye to eye thru each perspective – tracking a vision best left uncorrected.
10. A displacement later identified as “the poet” a.k.a. the hardest working noun in no business.
11. Adjacent to myself, surprise left me abeam in the waterway. Submarines reveal what memory displaced. A childhood vision where portals all look the same. A tunnel spilling out to a convenience store. I fired my feet and peeled back the fresh flesh. The dream of motion slowed with the luxury of never stopping.
12. It’s comfort that takes my head and shakes it. Having eaten is beneath. It’s a stately vault contains the body – as if vegetation is carved out of earth. Time as a building compress. A simple frame but stronger, it needs an ambitious prop to say yes to all.
Severance
Paid to forget I remember more. Off the rails where we are sentenced. It is time to plead for a simple place to sit. Ultimately replaceable we’re reminded to stop.
This is the network of twitch where memory is bare. It is a brand never new – where one for all inverts itself to take leave or to pay back. It’s a mime that regulates agreement – fat fingering the terms of sale.
This is the system of social assistance, composing sense. Around the corner where we can’t see the sound feel its way home. We made a beeline for it and got lost. Throwing what into whiteness pulls its chain. Purity as a lost seam where a pencil etched the white out. A ball of string thrown into the wind. Unraveled guideline traced to where the negative alights, to where seeds will never fall. These rules focus their imagined sum on the next step – a latticework that amounts to everything we just said.
_____
Robert Mittenthal is the author of Value Unmapped (Nomados), Martyr Economy, Ready Terms (Tsunami Editions), and the forthcoming Wax World (Chax). He lives in Seattle where he has been a curator of the Subtext Reading Series. His new blog Blandiloquent is at http://rmutts.blogspot.com
_____
RECONFIGURATIONS: A Journal for Poetics & Poetry / Literature & Culture, http://reconfigurations.blogspot.com/, ISSN: 1938-3592, Volume Three (2009): Immanence/ Imminence
_____
Memory Play
1. The withers of cold. Northern Spy or Williams Pride next to Sunshine Blue or muted berry. Like a captive crow with a slight case of experience each improvised sound a phrase written on long walks.
2. To keep the book open the trick is to turn the page, to see what is written. It sits here saying itself all over again. A Phantom Limb on facing pages set to prefer perfection.
3. Betrayal of a bottom no one can stand. So we sat there blood running to purity, a palimpsest whose love handles such things. Magnolia buds in beige infer a distant signal to flower. The essence of liquid primed or newly stretched. Forming white forms islands of grey, driftwood of a slender vocabulary. A mouth open to dwell on lips until collecting weeds its habit.
4. Each adjective stands for a mode of kneeling. Definition of an I that bends. A dominion all propped up. Bright line seeks parallel to conquer its divide. Usefully vicious he sticks it to them. Those who think they see are burnished in the calm of fracture. A forgotten peril whose script reproves us.
5. The new barbarians: they wove themselves bowties of copper & distributed network share.
6. Displaced eyes no longer intersect in courtyards. The open window to a city that once held our attention. Naked to what remains outside, an analog rewinds to play. Its diagrammed hand can’t stand for itself. The store of images magnificent in waiting.
7. The hand as map finally tucks under Mackinaw, bridge to the north that shifts light above Huron. Counting raindrops we lay soft as yellow and yellow as soft. Buttercups below the threshold of feeling. Footprints in sand behind us. As a sleight of hand, thought is reduced to what translates in the eye. Which leaves the other handle on the wall of language.
8. A monk connects a shrine to the threads of chance. 1000 scraps of paper. An abstract mass suddenly in the mouth. A mountain of caramel which both attracts and repels. When the alarm goes off he opens a small carton of chocolate milk. Excuse me, he says, I am very bad. With this, one may take pleasure in his fasting.
9. Cloisters or compartments whose divisions roil us. Logic adrift in the sounds of arrival and departure. We live between poles – each parcel a vast expanse. As ‘it’ goes (so do we) eye to eye thru each perspective – tracking a vision best left uncorrected.
10. A displacement later identified as “the poet” a.k.a. the hardest working noun in no business.
11. Adjacent to myself, surprise left me abeam in the waterway. Submarines reveal what memory displaced. A childhood vision where portals all look the same. A tunnel spilling out to a convenience store. I fired my feet and peeled back the fresh flesh. The dream of motion slowed with the luxury of never stopping.
12. It’s comfort that takes my head and shakes it. Having eaten is beneath. It’s a stately vault contains the body – as if vegetation is carved out of earth. Time as a building compress. A simple frame but stronger, it needs an ambitious prop to say yes to all.
Severance
Paid to forget I remember more. Off the rails where we are sentenced. It is time to plead for a simple place to sit. Ultimately replaceable we’re reminded to stop.
This is the network of twitch where memory is bare. It is a brand never new – where one for all inverts itself to take leave or to pay back. It’s a mime that regulates agreement – fat fingering the terms of sale.
This is the system of social assistance, composing sense. Around the corner where we can’t see the sound feel its way home. We made a beeline for it and got lost. Throwing what into whiteness pulls its chain. Purity as a lost seam where a pencil etched the white out. A ball of string thrown into the wind. Unraveled guideline traced to where the negative alights, to where seeds will never fall. These rules focus their imagined sum on the next step – a latticework that amounts to everything we just said.
_____
Robert Mittenthal is the author of Value Unmapped (Nomados), Martyr Economy, Ready Terms (Tsunami Editions), and the forthcoming Wax World (Chax). He lives in Seattle where he has been a curator of the Subtext Reading Series. His new blog Blandiloquent is at http://rmutts.blogspot.com
_____
RECONFIGURATIONS: A Journal for Poetics & Poetry / Literature & Culture, http://reconfigurations.blogspot.com/, ISSN: 1938-3592, Volume Three (2009): Immanence/ Imminence
_____
Kelly Moffett, "God of Water"
Kelly Moffett
When the God of Water enters your Basement, Bow
You make a sound of a window inhaling spring
and illustrate the dimensions of you,
your cheeks full
like wax about its wick, your tongue the wick.
But downstairs the water answers its own stillness.
You hear it now.
_____
Kelly Moffett teaches writing at Kentucky Wesleyan College. Her work has appeared in The Laurel Review, Tar River Poetry, Barrelhouse Magazine, Versal, and others, and her poetry collection was published April, 2008 in the UK.
_____
RECONFIGURATIONS: A Journal for Poetics & Poetry / Literature & Culture, http://reconfigurations.blogspot.com/, ISSN: 1938-3592, Volume Three (2009): Immanence/ Imminence
_____
When the God of Water enters your Basement, Bow
You make a sound of a window inhaling spring
and illustrate the dimensions of you,
your cheeks full
like wax about its wick, your tongue the wick.
But downstairs the water answers its own stillness.
You hear it now.
_____
Kelly Moffett teaches writing at Kentucky Wesleyan College. Her work has appeared in The Laurel Review, Tar River Poetry, Barrelhouse Magazine, Versal, and others, and her poetry collection was published April, 2008 in the UK.
_____
RECONFIGURATIONS: A Journal for Poetics & Poetry / Literature & Culture, http://reconfigurations.blogspot.com/, ISSN: 1938-3592, Volume Three (2009): Immanence/ Imminence
_____
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