Halvard Johnson
Any Part of the Lake
1.
Wedge of lake
between glass and steel buildings
pushing
for banks to do more
to be both
stronger and weaker
than before
not asking
for changes in policy
not trying to go to more board meetings
than ever before, not intending to prod
2.
Hardly five years
lie between them, the closeness only
an outward
indication
and
postcards and no
chocolate
historic
paradigm shift
dividing the lake from the riverbank
some aftermath of the war
3.
Little yellow houses
across the river, such beautiful
expressions
of principle
not universals
but
usables
taking
a short nap
manifest on the level of sound
some choice of genre
4.
Very special moments
chains of inspiring provocations
"caro
amico" he was
called
by his friends
"amico"
four
registers of voice
sounding out for all to hear
some humane gesture
5.
Hegemonic task of re-
volutionary literature
celebrating
the end
of "art,"
reweaving
the thread
—bad
dog, bad music—
as it were, the inner shell
the boundaries of gentleness
6.
The final "arabesque"
no need to walk out much
anymore,
or take
those figures
thrown into
such sharp
relief
fading from the approximate
into relative nothingness
7.
Only four minutes left
no need to call our friends much
anymore,
no lake
rising
phantom-like
out of nowhere
such rhapsodic
songs
coolly developed—time standing
still, lusting after life, playing by heart
Emily
B. Dufton
"you,
shinl, adkins, go!"
"you, shinl, adkins, go!"
if there
6th floor
5floors above
i know!
i know!
we are not going
anywhere
i am envious
you
i am envious
you
"and if they ring, if they ring,
i will cry 4 more times"
this is mass mfa
this is sister
this is birthday 111122
i will not do this now
412!
youallcometothisdaytoo
joue
separee
mots
peoieom
i write ecris for the girl who lives below
Garth Greenwell
Convertere
to turn from which is death
the mind
finding without that wall at which to thrust itself
itself as good
as not the mark
that we are not beasts the mark
only of an idea by which we are
engulfed and yet
because it is
implacable because
it will not give
demanding at last the sacrifice of that
to which it had been life
demanding
we wipe from our flesh the mark
by which we are not beasts the mark
of reason
to turn toward which is agony
and yet
Apophasis
To be made incapable of harm
of
thinking that commandment which is not true
commandment Christ
for a word I could speak I might not at once
unspeak, I would be marred so deeply
as to be
unrecognizable Brother
you are all day long in the memory
of God
to whom, in
obedience, or
cowardice let
me lift up my hands, that they
might be cut off
Terminus
—or not as he should, to pray
his body be made some other use of than
they make it; rather
in that glut of thankfulness
one welcomes a thing long longed for
with, thinking it
enough either an end to grief
or grief
so terrible it is itself its
end
How terrible
the mind is, open to the world
and yet it will not be shuttered, even
as in the next room a man cries
mercy
and does not mean it—
Amy
King
Forgiving
Kenosis
Skim
the moment in the statue’s guestroom where
carbon songs of rapid writing buoy us further
along, having been so lexically anonymous
throughout the charade of benevolent decades.
We continue to capture and cleave a blueprint
of the tequila dead amid chartered zero waters.
They submerge our cancelled heritage, which empties
itself of firmer horizons and kaleidoscopic deposits.
These
heroes also outline the mechanics
of our movie picture presence, as though
"to see" could possibly improve the pixels
an impregnated clock defends within its waxing
invisibility. Time marches over erosion even.
Stone falls from the nose and ears until we
cannot recognize the detonation. I once saw rain
become water in mid-air, forgetting its falling habit.
How to Add Blank Space
I cross out poker trip access
and insert the sail of cuisine rest
injected with a salt agent.
Mutable beings get dubbed "animated,"
and when sent through revolving
doors, their obligatory flavors emerge.
These are the world’s leading figures,
the disoriented, tasty things.
Eat them for true deception,
a cheaply disguised pay-per-view treat.
In the south, we call them
"rotisserie interventions of the closet kind"
While munching on enclosed porches,
the latest midnight in our blank stares.
Mosquitoes knock on the screen door.
Invitation is the same as getting in.
Buzzing out phototropes, they long for the ceiling
flavor of our benign, quiet limbs, vessels of repeat
Motion erasing swollen flesh in memory’s
plight.
Hank Lazer
2 poems from
Portions
Avant
avant
i want
& if you
i am becoming
my father’s dying
body okra tomatoes
sweet corn sunflower
to my son
our neighbor says
"you look just
like your father"
beans field peas
new potatoes today’s
purchase or to
gain purchase terror
of bare relation
just now being
here it of
course slips away
Mind
mind felt as
subset of an
other poem evidence
bodying forth sounding
out that comprehensive
set its motion
felt site of
unapparent containment circle
outward & "point
is the mind
operating in a
Oppen / Letters / 90
marvel which contains
the mind" or
mind in its
emergent simplicity force
occurring in words
i feel here
the transfer of
Chris McCreary
The Propositions
two
of swords
sworn
wands
of the world
whirl & whirr
of word
lessons
lessened
upon daily
reflection
unit
shifter tipping slightly,
shoving forward
its admiring tidings
playing aces
at an angle
*
rock
gone soft,
ink
released
as
a final line
of defense
*
if
orange is the new black,
then this page is a cage
illumination
occurs in error,
community is corrected
with clarity & discernment
they waxed enthusiastic
of slide fasteners,
ushered in epaulet,
espadrille,
eton jacket
*
avenues
of arousal
other-
wise uncounted
a
sixty-second workout,
a fit of natural expansion
divide
digits by fives
shirk solutions &
resurface smirking
all cross-bone styled
*
oracle
of opposition,
of error
pool in error
elder in error
or
arrow
advice
gone silent
swords
gone cyclical
& unexpected,
an unnerving swerve
averting tragedy,
another
travesty
of digital transcendence
*
seems
this mingled scent
of pepperoni & molten
metals
was absorbed by porous plastics
transfer
this malignant script
& strip it
of coding,
try
a different
tree or server
circadian
arcades
in seasonal swoon
as ten twins
again,
the winner
is presented
w/ a silken shirt,
a satin blazer
*
cups
& lovers under
covers,
too
adroit for favor
or admiration
tempered
mentholyptus
&
triaged
immolations
left
one dramatic stripe
of solid color,
left
the herringbone
emboldene
across the wire-rimmed
extrovert
the picturesque
failure
*
fifth
word
coined,
con
of a world
gone weary
small blue thing,
ball of string
this seventh generation
is scentless,
is not suitable
for philatelic archiving
*
the
offended syntax error commands
that sometimes you eat the bear,
sometimes the bear eats you
*
acquisitive
restraint,
subtle tug
on baton
&
wand
battery of mismatch,
of plateaus & pinnacles
gone all multiple
open palm,
open eye
ambisextrous au pairs
jaunting on catwalks
& promenades,
flaunting pajamaed plumage
*
ring
around the sun
runs
these countless challenges,
affection lost for glossy documents
sloshed by the radiator
radioactive eunuch grafter
shafting
slyly,
apples cored
at capture
sixth
coin
afflicts
a wish,
a promised ultimatum
senses forgotten
at the summit,
falling pensive
yet again
*
wands
stave off wands,
swords
sworn depressive nine times over
calculation
long on nostalgia
recovering comfort in stages,
an acquisitive obsession
w/ all things mundane & esoteric
wearer of layers,
tilter at windmills
glutton for comfort,
whore for more
*
if
spit spreads death, then this
slip shod cloak & dagger
is a clipper ship lost from shore
mornings spent slipping
the occasional poem
thru mail slots of the sleeping,
these meditations
on
an emergent sea
*
sham
enacted, lessons
hang low-tapered
& beribboned
lasso of the torso,
torsion w/ a twist
the sebaldian
moment slips
away,
the carnival closed,
the rides silent,
lights locked down
*
clock
parts
coiled
in the ear
this wake of weathered
rock,
quaking
distance
from distance
stripping
cadence
of modest divergence,
mocking charm of untruths
surface spurred
to further observances
*
jawbone
jinxed
linked
to skittish jitters
figment
out of pigment,
linament
on the ligament
gode & scold,
blame shame on Sundays
as the leathers begin
to spread & swell
*
green
tea leaves
foresee
gestures of lover
or somnambulist,
a burglar
dancing barefoot
abscond
w/ the diphthong
of longing
&
feel all existential
w/ a papier-mâché face
in place over yr own
*
enamored
of this
barbed wire kiss
my ass
such
utilitarian
tripwires & slipknots
coda
encoded,
may dazed
{o monday morning
pls show me yr glitch
bodice all deep imaged
so I might find this circle’s
cycle, this pool’s pull}
Michael
Farrell
veg
say two of us two bodies lie,
on a table one,
of us unable to move without the others momentum we;
each try to abandon the other without success,
take the expression you love mash on.
the,
surface nothing to be scared of you fork,
out your cash in search of new perfect samples &;
we drape like newspaper to the floor this is,
our relation to the third law love is the.
message
we can lead our donkey to carrots but try making her
read the ingredients on whats to us,
a simple tin in this example:
lies,
buried a principle of resistance
to civilization to time,
& so we say we express ourselves,
you mate are a parsnip a pumpkin a spinach.
rugby
the
use of ether might induce,
the,
reluctant,
in:
france they let,
blood into;
the mud you can see taking,
a shower the students some who probably
decide to ride home &-
never return you read the story of.
those
who make no sound &
those who make a,
will & this—
all prior to the.
great drama is.
the one who hurries,
the referee or god-
take,
a risk,
dont move before history moves you or it.
will surely drop you you made your bed.
dont
miss it stare out destiny
the lump that,
rises the frozen soldiers
the drunks & would;
be,
heroin addicts,
have faced heartbreak,
before & lived the,
coincidences of reading.
& action the ability to see the integration
of life with death.
destroy,
your tools!
William James Austin
from
trans/text/ual
word-scar
the deaf and blind.
what else can an old blabbermouth do?
skin cracked, weathered in baby oils
and reversione—
slid into some virgin slot
one within the other
who strangled
life
from the dual-ist—
man within woman,
woman within man—
mind against body
if I might only . . .
and be one eye one hand . . .
and set this without fever
down
as empty word-cradles
who got nothing to rock,
no bastard jerking cry,
no story
why there be history?
dispersals back and forth, here and there,
turn and re-turn—
we just language on stone.
what can it mean?
any cancer will kill what feeds it.
somebody gotta do something.
somebody gotta dig up the body,
make sure s/he's zeroed out,
if two's
down to
one's
down to . . .
in case the quantum's no-matter is
still
partnered
up
how many times I gotta step on something
before it gonna not split?
how many tim I got ston soming be na it?
h o n y I go tste on ing?
hoooooo . . .
skyglass
over gramercy park,
bustle under blank.
an intrigue, really,
this clarity tracing
serpentine appled branches,
this grand merci
for all that, some say, bad news.
I'm serving up a grammar-see through
one within the other.
I'm going for one last rewrite,
a final mirror copy
where the reversal
runs off at the margins,
stumbling drunk
on sullivan street.
just the tussled image
broken-framed in glass and backwards, to out-live
what's born for the dirt bath.
an earth narrative, tell us, with an explosion or two.
imagine such panorama moored to the lens,
roiling life with plenty of spill-over
and threaded so captured
by nothing more
than currents inward/outward curling
e + in + x turn all
I do a lot of walking. I'm here. there . . .
below 14th street mostly,
within the image
I have chosen, the romantic weave
that never quits re-citing itself. this is me for god's sake.
underwritten by the animal, the hot terror stuff
thrusting up, jerking around, wiping out.
I won't dignify the lawgiver. knock it off the agenda, save the
guts
if it has any. my dick in hand
and maybe I'm connected. alone in some lower east side flop joint,
alone and loaded on every fucking thing that happens,
that has happened.
it's where I cum from.
nothing
patterns itself.
no first word.
no singles parties.
the artist a-wash in provisions.
keep a-head for the combo plate at the diner.
the world is hyphenated—
a killing spree
the downtown cats don't purr
like they used to—
I smell of education, they say.
wheelchair jesse, x-whore, won't take my phone calls.
it don't pay to love her.
I'm not too worried about the cops.
I look guilty.
hell, everyone looks guilty.
the writing goes well one day
and not so well the next.
each remaking a betrayal,
one within the other.
I'm waste deep
in eden shit.
my narcotic ally hugged me with promises and vanished.
I imagine his cloudhead pressed in skyglass. I'm thrown out—
chapter and verse,
book by book
into these streets
John Byrum
"we have convinced
ourselves" was written in 2001 and revised mid-2002 for
a reading at the "An American Avant Garde: Second Wave" symposium
organized by Dr. John M. Bennett for the Ohio State University Libraries
and held on July 26 & 27, 2002.
"we have convinced
ourselves"
We have convinced ourselves
that we are aware of states of affairs evolving over time.
We have convinced ourselves that many of
the states of affairs of which we are aware occur outside ourselves.
We have convinced ourselves
that we can describe those states of affairs of which we can be
aware.
We have convinced ourselves that the states
of affairs of which we can be aware are as we have come to describe
them, at least approximately and provisionally.
We have convinced ourselves of the existence
of our descriptions of the states of affairs of which we can be
aware.
We have convinced ourselves
that the occurrence of states of affairs is a matter of our description,
and also that states of affairs occur independently of our descriptions.
We have convinced ourselves that the states
of affairs we describe evolve over time.
We have convinced ourselves
that our ways of describing change over time.
We have convinced ourselves that we use
language to describe the states of affairs of which we can be
aware.
We have convinced ourselves
that we become aware of states of affairs by means of our languages
of description.
We have convinced ourselves that our awareness
of states of affairs causes us to form the elements of our language,
which we then use to describe those states of affairs.
We have convinced ourselves
that our awareness of the possible configurations of states of affairs
constrains the possibilities of language, and also that the possibilities
of language constrain our awareness of the possible configurations
of states of affairs.
We have convinced ourselves that states
of affairs of which we are not aware may occur.
We have convinced ourselves
that we may someday become aware of some of the states of affairs
of which we are not currently aware, and that we may then find ways
to describe them.
We have convinced ourselves that states
of affairs we cannot describe may exist, and that we may some
day find ways to describe some of them.
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