fog or bog. million-to- (mon frer). lisp-conch dewrag. worn to attend. functions in Medieval Corridor of Philadelphia Jungian Society where the id-fabricay is motion in-tiny lapses salt shaker fray of nipluck. sunken. i was sunk like the sunken sunk to sink i sink he sinks she sinks we all sink. la-la-la or to say that faster rapid eye movement therapies explode M-80 duck's throat. pâté. 250 degree neck-spin double axle on iceberg watch. oh this is a eustachian nightmare! conchs have it worse when the sea goes pink with manta rays. if you want to be released without cerebellum intercontinental risk-reward diuretics. pick the pistachio under which. flags skeletonize their tele-graphic parabola-shaped spleens / horizons redgiantsuns swallow so we don't have to deal with the fallout
Second Half *
log or dog. filial shoe. bomb scare. sips bong skew shags born few upends suctions sin. real view horrid floor taffeta. hungerment properties bear simmer salmon days fizz quotes hymn inter-finicky fault factual May's broth listed tucked done-in. sky fuzz debunked psyched for drunken chunk fool proves this entropy below eminem stuck moat. oil decay. duel "if" she emcees insect din bubble paxil flows tinker pith path planted maze. sift moo Kant's ruby greased dismount repellent rim Zirconial mental fist forward Dianetics. sick the stash plunder filch. crags fell better tone dyes fair sell pathmark in manic arabia-dripped means / shore bites sans theymighbetheones bail low so key soaked brave you feel this trifle bout
--------------------------
*second half was composed as a sonically associative echo of the first, much like a homophonic translation
nile-wide, eye eye eye.
a sylph, bee low my buzz.
it wants, to do, at mouth.
no. not every one. can end,
dare a-licked, like is. or:
put it, porn again. dew wit
like its done, on, cyber.
space, opened, bee twain. no,
went in sight. tight tight.
some move into teal night departed human union smoke dragging muscle torn vertically always long bruised legs brush by kicking sawed off orificed aluminum
an alley an accomplice behind shop whispers there are more in sweaters repeated there are more will wear you brick through a window widowed offers problematic
sawdusted floor footprints lips of fish fondling gray torture surrounded by islanded flashed flesh of the one who walks along other rooms chattering teeth your other rooms i think are yours nailbiting yours let's go
hands emocursed in unusual flame of all angles cut vertically dismantling indexed shadows taken into widowarmed account taken in shaken fake framed given access given fuckembraced falsity a faultywinged decade swallowed of unsober allegiances sucked in bottlewise
where are you how now when disgust hinges follow fellows followed in hollowed hashish followed in fabricked fooling flowing flawed of whispered foolish radish of followed and followed in distant disappear dear
was all pot roast. hope: that i can't hold, doll. for you write, wrong. big. bold. ass, a nine-volt shite. "boners were tulips", yes, butt, i never, have never, buttered heads, as such, w/ you. its' all weary simper. i, conned, take, your, "can't".
Accustomed as he was to insignificance, her shelter made him wince. He would delete the friction that derived from all the dither of her doting. He would rinse his hands repeatedly and turn inward, anticipating still repeated onslaughts. He would lather his forearms and let the cleanliness contain him. He would shield the silence he preferred from whatever she had said. He was a shadow of her overtime, sensing the unwanted love. He yearned to hold his youth in check while she inflicted her experience. He brought home what he had and locked the door as though it were a new door. He repainted its exterior the color of resistance. He failed to think the rain might be a form of tearing up. He was invisible as precipitation sans the dust.
I am taught to love the ending as much as we are in love with endings. Flexibility is the same as fragility. But these days the lotus is evidence, and I have tried again and again to memorize your face, but it is the air placed between our bones, when our bones are outside of us and fertile as the blackbird's bright red carnelian eye. Maybe we will wake up in our tombs. Maybe we will be born drenched.
Mary Walker Graham: Poetry Magazine: September 2005
Every once in a while, I find solid evidence that mainstream Amer-Lit verse is not completely dead. Mary Walker Graham's two poems in the September issue of "Poetry" are such proof. In an established mainstream context, Graham subverts mainstream conventions by creating what seems to me to be an "anti-epiphanic I." That is, these are (more or less) lyric poems, which pay close and loving attention to syntax, craft, and melopoeia; but the protagonist of the poems goes out of her way to preserve her moody mysteries, reject closure, keep the reader compelled. This, rather than walking the proverbial dark woods to gain, via an ecstatic moment of realization, knowledge to didactically, bombastically impart. Stanley Kubrick used camera angles to create subtle moods of alienation and unease; Graham uses her "I" in much the same way. These are the closing lines of "No where, No one":
Drowned or owned, I'm now here. My face breaks with a bit of blue— a bit of bruise and some rawness in the rushes.
Many staple Amer-Lit poems are puppy dogs, slobbering all over us in an attempt to gain love and acceptance. Graham's are not. Graham throws a veil over herself and dares us to peek beneath, dares us to care. It is a dare because Graham is complete and self-sufficient in her isolated stasis; she doesn't need us. Exquisite alliterations in these lines, but they don't cloy, because Graham seems to be throwing them out merely to create ambiance. She thus moves beyond the faux-intimacy of Confessional poetry, into a realm of Impressionistic, free-associative chance/roulette. The anti-epiphanic I is sustained (though slightly diluted by hints of Elektra-consonant approval seeking) in "Parts of a Story," but "No where, No one" is the essential piece, the most pure expression, it seems, of Graham's original talent. It's encouraging to see "Poetry" taking a chance with some fresh, intriguing new voices. It's even nicer to see Ms. Graham deconstruct the mainstream lyric poem and put it back together in such an original fashion. I hope to see more from her soon.
Saw your post on Alex's blog. So now you have another Cooper-ian to your name. 'Hi'!
Lots of commas, excellent, I like this a lot, dense, dizzying, as a piece of text it LOOKS engaging - almost conrete poetry - as well as yielding conceptual tresaures upon cracking open the tin.
What a beautiful poem. One to have around on the rare occasions that I can't sleep. Lovely. I have a new poetry blog magazine at http://boltsofsilk.blogspot.com. I'd be delighted if you wanted to submit some poems! More details on the blog! Best wishes Juliet
It's woven into her, that polo
shirt. She might even fuck w/ it.
Not "we", post-we or sub-we, but
just "pseudo", "quasi", "ersatz".
Nothing w/ "self" in it; nothing
implying discrete boundaries.
Becky isn't bounded, or has
boundlessness woven into her...
Polo shirts are what they are,
remain so. If I say "objective
correlative", I bring string into it,
so that Becky might be
strung up. I don't deny a "literal"
element, or that Becky might stay in.
All I mean is, between "us", there's
"more-than-us". That's what I'm
"getting at"; it's woven into me
It's late and you are a verbogeometric catastrophe in that dress / the one with sunspots gazing in / through / banyan roots ripped open / from tender plot / across in-loving-memory. I knew that man to be an astronaut / aerosol of criticism / way he said you should hold a baseball / two fingers across the stitching / remote mitt / dust of photo-finishes
2.
My cheek opened as / faultline / Red Sea / same place Jacob wrestled / lost / is that how it went? / double doors / no, go back let me go back I will be fine no just let me go back I will be fine no let me go back I will be fine no let me go let go of me let go
3.
slim bed / oven flames / sun coming in / no curtain / morning circle / resurrection of names / consent / in your room / no morning circle / dreaming is
4.
I thought the rainbow that day / meant something more / so sad that there are no more perfect half-circles of spectrum / driving in the opposite direction / only one direction / expressions said this / translator of voices / dopamine / "i wish" / no it was / the lack of
5.
I can only keep my mouth open for so long / dumb moth / she said / ice crystals in your lungs / I can see them forming / coming in from all hours of the night / every angle / shadows have six legs / come forward
6.
I can still smell the yellow of dandelions on the back of my eyes / reaching me here / how many minutes crawl in front / plashing of wind through pin oaks / one in particular / withstood hundred thrashes / lightning wet or / what he called joy / carving you out of your skin / don't need anymore
7.
Is this you / running toward / trying to position your body perfectly under moon / firelight / days passing / all as / one summer out of nothing
nice Andrew, as if you've taken a swath of some strange universe's midsection in each-- i can't find the edges, and thank god, i don't want to know where they are
down. blackout. stained. i am suffering. truth she sold me faultlines. the village is doomed. a hurricane. down. blackout howl. the 33rd witness sold me out to babylon.
Hi. My name is Michelle. This is my first time posting, though I've been reading and enjoying the blog for a month or so. This picturepoem is from a series called Psychedelic Domestic.
I was ablated yesterday by Grove Press neurologists. The dimensions continue to bubble and pour Clorox onto positrons of sunlight. Contrary to the bless you sneezing its grace period on sneaker trails, I overshadowed my own fuselage's reconstruction and saw the fortified book of life jump to the front of the fire. Your strange balloon is sneaking into bed with my wife every night. It fills her with helium and from then on, she is never like I remembered.
Englands Rage Englands Rage How chaste our new society In the fields just North of here its landscape breathing winds seem to echo fear Two paths run opposing end in near affinity the flesh, for now is human ness sleep around a little to claim little lives untraceable Then children not buggered by cruelty, by everywhere uncertainty By answers quite contradictory then leaving by the self same apathy We're soon to worry democracy female sexuality, weave hoar's tooth Owls sooth alternatives patterned by diplomacy. An' train lines rugged beaten, Sour like febrile technocracy the lichen of flesh the parody of history homeless benefited martyr here lies the safety nets of wholes disarray. And all in alls, said and done we cannot escape memory like words communicate all but everythings said, anyway In lasting , sensing reeling, to put one truth upon another Our future's stark, simple, thus In my eyes, yours the self each other
Incessantlly, intentionally, she says his name as though we may decide to like him if we hear it frequently, mellifluously, imbued with her affection.
And when she speaks his name, it sounds as though she's holding on to it to keep her breath and heartbeat moving to a tune she's sure we've heard and she is hearing.
Within hearing distance are the consonants, the vowels, the syllables that form when tongue and teeth pronounce them. She pronounces each as if her life will not collapse if she repeats it.
She repeats the vowel sounds and little fences made by consonants surrounding, and as if protection is a function of her voice, her heart and hemline, filling in the blemishes, the vacancies.
She is enlisting us to close the openings through which the letters of his name might slide, might inform the aura that surrounds his lifeline of the mirror image of a struggle through soft white clutter of a cloud.
She requests our hope for leveling the plot of land that stretches between people as if to take away the barriers she knows are there and will be there so long as we can see them, taste them, reinvent them.
loss, communications inflections, languages limitations, the obsessions of ordinary lives, the limitations and advantages of the feminine condition, an incessant awareness of nature(?) - the fundamental necessity of communication/ the necessity of "hiding" that, that must be spoken(!) or otherwise communicated.
this private summer the bacteria move the liquid OF THE TONGUE in practical mouths
machines for making the natural homes of chicken and bread decay or refrigerating -- a mixture of cold pork and Melissa
every St. Petersburg or Vacaville burns cream and other comestibles the smoke a dissipating soup we will rub it on this utensil handle, her skin, in order to make the inside of food
we must either make the flame disappear
inside your throat or you need to decay a little ice with a hearty fork supplied with kerosene
the pipes inside have a small box or room, cool and even, to make small fresh meat, to keep it illuminating A WARM PLACE
to salt this you need to evaporate very rapidly in the rising streams
this is really terrific, i love how reality melts, the train of thought is so plastic and carnal-- i have to read this again because i feel as though i might have missed something
it's cold inside & out, this essay is unwritten and i breathe in and i'm afraid my right wrist resting against the keyboard swollen where i clamped it between bus door & overpacked bag leaving town.
when you called the other day i was in your housemate's bed but, probably, you already knew, but we talked like old times 'cept instead of 'special' you called me 'self centred,' but i've learned that's what boys call you when you stop fucking them and start someone else but
fuck me dead i'm a poet we're meant to be self centred.
2.
i'm not a bad person i'm not bad i'm not a bad person i'm not stomach crunches on my bedroom floor keeps everything tight and i'm not a bad person up i'm not i'm not down i'm not a bad person my clamshell phone inches from my head we go up we go down
3.
cardigans: folded, washing: put away, essay: unwritten, books: stacked, letters: still there, you; gone, me: somewhere else, these things we do and remember
5.
alone and you're not i'm not bothered 'cause how big is my heart? it grows and grows and grows. it wants to spout big cliches, 'you ripped the skin right off me like an almond, without even parboiling first,' the garbage truck sprays the windows with unflattering light and my hair is as distressed as this essay, as this poem.
6.
we went through our lists together, you know i've had my men before and it's the ones like you i didn't want who rip the skin off just like a goddamned almond.
...of myriad small things/this time through the mirage of you (when hearsay becomes capable of dissipating blistered seconds rising from the road in blind idiot wisps of naivete) quickened to savour/past the rhetoric of The West and nihilism's corrosive ruins/to bomb loaded cadavers embedded in the center that justifed falling from the half-way mark of grace to drink the boredom of gods forging the distance of revision/created to still blasphemy and a fair amount of pain curling its speckled wings to shield their precious whores from the net of tomorrow raining whys from the depths of space
She said her dog died of a brain tumor. Happened quickly, seizures one after another. For years that dog sat between them on the couch, they talked through him and to him like the child they never - -
Saturday morning chores after walking the dog she'd go through the motions with her husband in and out and inandout she'd lie and listen for the dryer to buzz, think about what she could use to remove the stains from the shower years building up in the corners, a small bruise beneath the skin.
They got a new dog. And some new scented trash bags for the kitchen that stretch and flex and never tear.
"In the pale light of the moon, I play the Game of You. Whoever I am. Where ever you are. I walk through the stars and sky. A trinity of You." --Neil Gaiman
"Wash never liked details to get in the way of a bad metaphor." --Josh Whedon
Some Other American
Some other Nobius Lives upside down Where twilight super heroes Can't get it right Blink out and fade Then fall from the sky Imperfect lenses watch American Vertigo Turning life to art Fields to wheat Artists are like that An answer to the roses.
I believe with all of the antipathy you shed on me that I will outlive an opposing infantry without the thought of branch officious notes miscast into long lines of twelve insistent on selfocracy.
It is my swear word of the month to torch definity unless you let go kite string after nominative bunching. Then and only now will I arrest the permanent record of antiquity to have propeled the existential into stealth care.
Promise me you'll never shelve these warm and gestured sonnet leaves. They strip their veins of dust when I'm afraid to watch them bear up under shadow lint.
Confrontive silhouettes reveal forfeited light. The word "if" might have been a mantra if the styles did more than show themselves to night. The wear and tear of opulence removes our sleep, as one does not resist comparing grace notes to their singular divided light.
Gentle Thunder: sinking skin as alphabet neutrino grace levering a secret caravan shucking and jiving the electric belonging to all of us and running through our fingers simultaneously,
boldly squeezed confident alignment writing desires as parted lips meeting everything at some rubbing of the self on the sonic taste/creating sight syllables (no longer king of the click)
Truth as universal pall-bearer?
Digging through quiverig paranoia
the mirror becoming the supreme issue of our time, exposing the sham metaphysics lurking insidiously behind all forms of representation
Not even good for the setting sun that makes music sexy...
wishing past your pants, facetious as ever, creating titanic all we can do miasma frying subterfuge with the glory of an epidemic rifle addressed to the ancestors of water-dreams chewing on the lumpen band-aids incipient, feeling spacious and dangerous allure peddling a busty trauma freezing cold, thinking constantly about veneered lines of lonely so becoming of the sky
The breath of beauty (repose)/banned in public coming as taped sieves to hardened stomachs (just below the religious in one big bicycle) crossed the book of avenues alive with bronzed, sweaty backs/knowing the cessation of desire fully (between the terror and the transcendental)
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