Early Fall Apparition Poems

I've been sick with a bad head-cold for the past 3-4 days. As such, amidst all the other things I have to do, its been a little tough coming up with ideas for posts here. So I am opting for the easy way out, and posting several new Apps. Hope you like 'em.


#1241

Why does no one tell the truth?
Because the truth is (more often
than not) absurd. No one wants
to look absurd, so no one tells
the truth, which creates even
more absurdity; worlds grow
into self-parody, systems grow
down into gutters, whole epochs
are wasted in perfidy; Cassandra
finally opens her mouth, no one
listens, they want her to star in
a porno, set her up with a stage-
name, she learns not to rant,
visions cloud her eyes, cunt—


#1223

She was seated at a desk,
giving a dramatic speech
(pronounced with acidic
bitterness), glaring at me,
I was punching a telephone,
trying to reach Dominique,
who had given me a phony
number, while two young,
androgynous sprites made
love in a chair, Leonard
joined my committee—

she was seated at a desk,
her voice rose to a pitch I
couldn’t tolerate, but also
it brought me to the verge
of orgasm, because she was
sucking myself out of me,
doing it psychically, when
I woke up, she was updating
her Face about lost sleep—


#1168

The essential philosophical question
 is incredibly stupid—
why is it that things happen? You can
 ask a thousand times,
it won’t matter— nothing does, except
 these things that
keep happening, “around” philosophy.

#1510

Sky of mud, what we
have placed in you is
much more rank than
any rapist ever put in
prone woman— like
a race of rapists, we
have prowled earth in
search of womb-like
comforts, sent vapors
into ether just to get
someplace sans loss
of time, expense; for
us, no defense, death—
as rapists, caged, gored.

New Apps

#1543

What could be more crass
than a round-trip ticket to
Los Angeles? Nothing but
beds of starlets, flawless in
perfect color harmony but
vomit stains in the toilet, I
don’t know what could be
more crass, in fact I don’t
know anything anymore, I
think the sky is marvelous.


#1134


It is by dint of great labor
that lines heap up on one
another (enjambed or not),

it is by dint of great labor
that they take on the cast,
die, substance that sticks,

it is by dint of great labor
that poets must forget this,
because to stick means not

to stick, it means to loosen
perpetually out of grooves,
let things topple into place,

let shapes manifest slowly,
let life meander, be rolling—


#1145

The Tower of Verse
is a Babel, no one pays
their rent, many leap
from windows to sure
death, many leave, yet
there is a strange sense
of satisfaction given to
those who stay, and it
is merely this—
 clean windows
 allow us to see
 wisps of smoke,
 (grey, red, turbid)
 rise from ashes—

#1103


As a child, I
reached up,
towards my
Mother; as

a man, as I
reach, I am
deep down
in earth, or

I reach out
to find air,
nothing to
mother me,

emptiness,
soot & ash.

Bob's Chicago, Sous Rature, Oranges and Sardines

Bob Archambeau has written a thought-provoking precis of the Chicago scene on his blog. He name-checks me and my own formulation regarding the Windy City's place in the current trans-American firmament. I call the Chicago group the Chicago Eliotics: they meld formal rigor, grace, and technical invention in a way that (for me) evokes T.S. himself.

I have a poem entitled Zero to One: A Probability Field in the current issue of Sous Rature. It is an old poem, dating back to the spring of 2005, the semester I studied with Anne Waldman. Thanks to Cara Benson for publishing it.

Also, several self-portraits in the new issue of Oranges and Sardines. Thanks, as always, to Didi Menendez.

Death Paintings by Dario Argento

What would happen if Bonnard decided to paint the Texas Chainsaw Massacre? The result might be something like Dario Argento’s Suspiria, a cult classic dating from the mid 1970s. The average horror movie has, as its foundation, two elements: death and the revelation of secrets. Suspiria expands upon this to include two other key elements: space and color. Ultimately, it is Argento’s use of space and color that lifts Suspiria out of the realm of the banal and into the realm of art. The most stunning cinematographic moments in the movie seem to revolve around corpses and death scenes; Argento crafts gorgeous “death paintings” from gore, blood, and lurid lighting. He also repeatedly evokes Poe’s Masque of the Red Death. In short, this movie is a visual feast, and almost every shot has a painterly quality. So much so, actually, that (for me at least) it’s a little hard to take in all at once. The only criticism I have of this gem is that it sags in the middle. But it would be pretty hard to beat either the first or the last fifteen minutes for pure ambience, gorgeousness, tension, and death painting ecstasy.

John Carpenter's The Thing

I'm not sure why I seem to be going through a horror movie fetish. Is it the horror of dealing with insurance companies? Is horror built into the Zeitgeist of 2009? And will someone please tell me where good horror poetry is being written (besides Philadelphia)? In any case, John Carpenter's The Thing is a classic of the genre. Kurt Russell gives a riveting performance as MacReady, a true hero in a genre that produces few true heroes (unless you want to valorize Jason Vorhees). The story involves courage, reserve, and deep strength; it transcends some of the movie's garish special effects. What I am trying to do now, in the Apps and in the autobiographical books, is to write poems (short and long) that deliver the same frisson. Why can't our poems be more like movies? In 2009, I think it is a question worth looking into.