BlazeVOX

An.online.journal.of.voice

A compendium

BlazeVOX Vol. 1 : 2k1; 2k2 & 2k3

BlazeVOX [books]
Buffalo, New York
BlazeVOX An.online.journal.of.voice A compendium

Copyright © 2007

Published by BlazeVOX [books]

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without

the publisher’s written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews.

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First Edition

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 BlazeVOX
An.online.journal.of.voice

A compendium

BlazeVOX Vol. 1 : 2k1; 2k2 & 2k3

 Blaze 21st Century
Voice

Premiere Issue

Fall 2000

an.online.journal.of.voice

editor in chief : ezra pound

acting editor : geoffrey gatza

1
Blaze 21st Century Voice an.online.journal.of.voice

Table of Contents

Letter from the editor : a deposition 4

Geoffrey Gatza

Who are you : A Mission Statement 6

the Voice Initiative

Robert Duncan: The Ambassador from Venus

Lisa Jarnot
Six: Childhood's Retreat 9
Seven: The Architecture 11
Eight: The Oregon Trail 13

Karyatides 17
Ann Erickson

Eight Stories 19
Cydney Chadwick

The Parable (excerpt) 24

Jono Schneider

Pain (excerpt) 29
Christopher Reiner

the Desire Notebooks 31

John High

Kim Kasey
Saffron 42

Mez
agentfade = the beginning 43
dif.fur.rent spacez 46
:::::::LOGGIN ON2 NET.WURK::::::::::::: 47

2
The Na[to]ture Ov The data]h![bleede 49
tingelle tranzlationz 53

Alan Sondheim
The Vapid 55
Learning you 55

geoffrey gatza automation corp

seeking a present 56
100 degrees in Phoenix 57
the burning 58

William James Austin

after-word-s 60
beethoven’s fist 61
shooting a few 62
sartor resartus,
or the crossdresser’s lament 63
bondage 64
sex tour 65

Tribute to Ernst Jandl

Remembering Jandl 67
Ronald Millsap

Jandlfort 72
Robert Creeley

To Jandl 74
William James Austin

IN MEMORIUM 76
William James Austin

Blaze Submission Guidelines 77

Blaze Authors 78

3
Letter from the editor :
a deposition
Salutations

So he elbow’s me and start’s in on his cat again. How she’s on the internet all the time
digging up all kinds of crazy europorn and developed from somewhere a strange snuff habit. How
she got into the stuff he doesn’t know but he suspects his neighbor’s cat Taffy.

This was the voice that heralded the new beginnings of a new year, decade, century and millennium
festivities. I alone, caught away from friends on a train riding home from a dull New Years party forced to
listen to his man jabbering on with his crazy talk. This was the voice of the new era blabbering on and on

But it’s the snuff alright and she must be at it all the time the way he’s going on about it.
He certainly didn’t approve of his little baby, a caramel colored kitty getting hooked to powdered
tobacco. I gathered she snorted it off a paw, not the floor.
Who’d figure it.

This was the 21st century voice and it had me by the elbow

It’s one thing, he says, when she uses his credit card to order gritty litter or those damn
tinkling toys from pets.com and its another thing entirely to go out with god knows who’s cat to
buy a few tins with money stolen from may wallet. I know, he says, that’s why you hid it from me
… I know. But why snuff? What’s wrong with smoking. Its more American than falafel.

As I listened on as the unwitting wedding guest wishing Life and Death would gambol everything away …
for all the mediaspun paranoia-hype to unfurl its leathery black wings, unleash its energies in a kinetic
explosion any terrorists would gleem for … right here … right now … in the LaSalle St. Station … cleanse
us all, destroy us …
all from this boring bantering voice of mediocrity.

Oh I should talk I know, me with my beer. But who do sells this stuff to a one year old cat,
is what I want to know. And you know this will only lead to other inhalants, you know that don’t
you. I heard it on NPR. Teenage boys who sniff tobacco ultimately spin off to cocaine, a natural
progression of sorts. And if I can’t afford to use the stuff you don’t think I’m going to foot the bill
for a cat’s coke habit. He pauses, It’ll be the SPCA rescue service after her then out on the
streets strung out …

4
And so disappointed by this heralding angel, guardian of the new century, I decided to explore who, what,
this new century could offer.
To beat the ground with a buffalo
I offer you Blaze
An electronic journal of the 21st Century Voice. A vision as it were, of a low cost medium seeking you in
wide open spaces. Using new devices whose names are acronyms posing as nouns. This is the voice of
the new … and I invite you to explore whatever it is we find. This, our first issue is a dedicated to Ernst
Jandl, who died on June 9th, 2000. Jandl’s voice exemplifies all that is possible. Opening the field for
exploring the symbols we communicate with. I believe this is an appropriate remembrance with which to
begin.

Ever & Affectionately,

Geoffrey Gatza

5
 W h o a r e y o u

A M i s s i o n S t a t e m e n t

Geoffrey Gatza Automation Corp

or I
to be more precise

the question asked to Alice

the question asked by Roger Daltry

the question asked by everyone at some point who am I

am I the same I I was the last chance I checked out who I was?
who am me ?
as it still looms over our philosophers
minds poets hearts dreamers
dreams & scientists science
today
in speech theories and language technologies
the formation of the Voice Initiative

enter the enterprise of Solutions

Voice Initiative
Our goal is to coordinate
build and deploy poetic solutions with StealthWare® technology,
and various literary methods,

those known and in practice

(and those still incubating in research stages …

With the explosive growth of poetic devices

and the increasing demand for network access

Voice Initiative was formed

to define specifications
for how works of imaginative literature
can be produced,
transmitted and received
to and from existing and future internet buyers and sellers

Demand, and all that that implies

Currently, there are no standards in place for the Voice Initiative

“In today’s world of pervasive literary magazines, users want a simple, fast hassle literary
networking devices to connect to / with that communicates to the soul,”

said Morton Jackery of the IPLCNS

(Internet Poetics Licensing Consortium on Narrative Systems)

“Through a joint collaboration, the Voice Initiative and The Inaugural Alliance
(TIA) plan to eliminate the complexities of internet publishing, while providing future
generations of standard compliant poetry
and
literary enabled e-products.”
6
The Inaugural Alliance (TIA) plans to deliver

specifications and industry cooperation to build

cost-effective methods to deliver

quality works of imaginative art

using
Century Voice 21 technology™

As additional technical specifications are created,

they will be submitted to the industry standards bodies

for consideration as open solutions to current theoretical

literary problems
The future depends on who controls the present,
Yeats knew this and said as much

One of the initial joint efforts of the Voice Initiative Alliance

will be to conduct highly targeted research studies to identify
enterprise solutions where literary devices will significantly enhance
and in some cases change
the way writers do their writing

Since just in time access

to information and computer
resources is readily available

a major competitive advantage

will be to professionally license poets

this will be the primary focus for the Alliance

As computing technologies become increasingly embedded in a range of products, speech is the one
convenient, consistent and natural way people can effectively interact with one another …
The human voice will become the user interface for the next
generation of productivity

support literary technology

as a positive move toward standards creation

that facilitate the user’s access to literature and literary

information as a
fundamental need and desire of a limited portion of the
internet world …
making this
vision a reality

Licensing Procedures

To find out how you too can become a member of the Voice Initiative or The
Inaugural Alliance (TIA) and petition our Poetic Licensing Standards Consortium (PLSC)
for you too be a proud licensed poet.
Know you are a good poet and your work really is as good as
you perceive it to be
Impress your contemporaries
Extra credit approved by most Colleges and Universities
(Except USA, Canada, UK)
Show your mother you are doing something tangible with your life

7
 Read below.
Only you can make
the difference … Join Today

Make a passion a career

Voice Initiative & The Inaugural Alliance

coordinates builds and deploys every literary method known with explosive
growth of poetic devices increasing demand poetic network accesses. Voice
Initiative was formed to define specifications for how works of imaginative
literature can be produced, transmitted and received by existing and future
internet markets

Voice Initiative

1 Three year membership with free subscription to Blaze

1 Instant approval of poetic licensing from the IPLCVS accrediting board
1 Laminated parchment license in a dura-hide folder … suitable for framing
1 Free subscription to the wide assortment of VSP internet chapbook series
1 Blaze t-shirt
1 Wallet ID card
1 instant enrollment in the VI newsletter
(Membership & Licensing) $50.00

The Inaugural Alliance (TIA)

1 Three year membership with free subscription to Blaze

1 Free subscription to the wide assortment of VSP internet chapbook series
1 Consideration based upon approval from the IPLCVS accrediting standards board
1 Wallet ID card
1 instant enrollment in the TIA newsletter
(Membership and licensing consideration) $25.00

8
Lisa Jarnot

Robert Duncan: The Ambassador from Venus

Six: Childhood's Retreat

Digging in the snow, the children

uncovered wild strawberries,
rosy and joyous, hidden among leaves,
red, red as the blood of the children
fallen upon the drifts of snow.

All winter the snow fell.

The children lying in the chill snow drifts
uncovered wild strawberries
hidden among the leaves.

Robert Duncan, "Strawberries Under The Snow"

During the first months that Robert Duncan was in their custody, Edwin and Minnehaha Symmes
took him to Yosemite, California where Edwin had found work with the Yosemite National Parks
Company. Symmes, then a fledgling architect, most likely participated in the design of the park's first
tourist hotels, and he certainly helped to draft the plans for a network of highways built in and around the
park during the early 1920s. Despite the isolation of their life there, the Symmeses fared well in
Yosemite. Between the spring of 1921 and the summer of 1923 they lived there almost exclusively while
their house in Alameda was being constructed. Yosemite, due east of San Francisco near the Nevada
border, had been discovered by explorers in 1851, though the area had long been inhabited by Miwok
and Paiute Indians. Established as a National Park in 1890, it is part of the Sierra Nevada range, with
peaks towering to 13,000 feet, and over a thousand square miles of creeks and meadows sprawling
between the various heights. During the summers the temperatures are tolerable in the shade of groves
of ancient giant sequoias, but during the winters large parts of the area are subject to closure in the high-
altitude snows. While the Symmeses spent their winters in the seclusion of Yosemite's employee camps,
they had limited access to the news of the day. The United States, ostensibly on the road to a post-war
"return to normalcy" under the Republican administration of Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge,
faced a backlash of social unrest. Prohibition laws were met with an active trade in bootleg alcohol, and
labor and communist movements were formed in response to the day's domestic troubles. One of the
more visible conflicts in that regard came during the summer of 1921 with the murder convictions of Italian
anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. Arrested in South Braintree, Massachusetts on clearly
questionable charges in the midst of anti-radical paranoia, their trial and imprisonment became a focus of
international attention, culminating in their executions in 1927. For Robert Duncan, an anarcho-pacifist
throughout his adult life, the case and its literature would contribute to the lore of his political beliefs.

9
Meanwhile in Europe, the 1920s saw upheavals of a different sort. Out of the revolutions in culture,
science, and philosophy that had begun before the First World War, sprung the literary movements
known as Imagism, Dadaism, and Surrealism. While Robert Duncan took his first steps and spoke his
first words on the remote peaks of Yosemite, those texts that would later so clearly inform his poetics
were coming into print‹ 1922 marked the publication of James Joyce's Ulysses, followed in 1923 by
Sigmund Freud's The Ego and the Id, and in 1924 by Andre Breton's Manifesto of Surrealism. Still more
importantly to the Symmeses, whose theosophy included a belief in an ancient Egyptian homeland, came
the news in November of 1922 of the discover of Tutankhamen's tomb at Luxor in the Valley of the Kings.
In an unstable post-war era, the Symmes children found themselves welcomed into a household that was
in many ways comfortable. They later remembered little of their sojourns in the wilds of Yosemite, though
both could reconstruct essential facts with the help of the many photographs their parents took between
1920 and 1923. In those photographs, the two youngsters appeared well-entertained‹ sharing toys,
perching on rocks between the sequoias, and in one image, riding in the back of a car with a petting zoo
donkey. The proximity in age between the children facilitated a certain companionship. The sandy-
haired bright-eyed Robert could often be found with his toddler sister Barbara clutching him around the
waist, brown lengths of curls obscuring her grin. One of the more curious tales of those years was
associated with a photograph of Duncan, his sister, and another child posing on the back of mule in a
Yosemite meadow. As Barbara Jones understood it, the photograph was a still image from an early
Hollywood film starring Irene Rich.

But for Robert Duncan, the most important incident of that period was of a more traumatic nature.
While he had no clear memory of the event, it left its lifelong mark. During the winters in Yosemite, he
sometimes suffered from snow-blindness, a condition his parents remedied by bundling him into his
winter clothing and sending him outdoors equipped with a pair of sunglasses. While running through the
snow one morning during the winter of 1922, he tripped, shattering the sunglasses and injuring his left
eye. Despite a doctor's efforts to reverse the damage by means of a regiment of stereopticon exercises
and prescription eyeglasses, Duncan was left permanently cross-eyed at the age of three. He described
the flaw in his vision in "A Sequence of Poems for H.D.'s Birthday":

I had the double reminder always, the vertical and horizontal displacements
in vision that later became separated, specialized into a near and a far
sight. One image to the right and above the other. Reach out and touch.
Point to the one that is really there.

As a result of the accident, Duncan wore corrective eyeglasses for the remainder of his
childhood. It was during his first year of college that he discarded them, after doctors informed him that
his sight would never be restored to normal.

10
Robert Duncan: The Ambassador from Venus
Seven: The Architecture

"...it must have recesses. There is a great charm in a room broken up in

plan, where that slight feeling of mystery is given to it which arises when
you cannot see the whole room from any one place...when there is always
something around the corner"

‹Gustav Stickley, Craftsman Homes, as quoted in Robert Duncan's "The

Architecture, Passages 9"

Behind the walls that surrounded the property at 1700 Pearl Street stood an architectural
anomaly. Resembling a Spanish mission ranch from the outside, its main foyer opened into a room
conceived of as a theosophical chapel. High wooden crossbeams arched to form a cathedral ceiling, and
a stairwell at the room's center led to a curtained balcony from which one could observe the activities
below. It was one of the more memorable aspects of the house for the Symmes children‹ the partially
obscured platform they crept up to while their parents held dinner parties and entertained friends. Robert
Duncan never separated the architecture of that household from the mysteries of his family's religious
practices. Exempt from the rituals of the hermetic brotherhood because of his age, he found himself
turning corners in the large angular rooms uncertain of what would appear from behind doors or out of the
darkened alcoves. As he recalled years later:

...in the inner chamber, the adults, talking on, wove for me in my childish overhearing,
Egypt, a land of spells and secret knowledge, a background drift of things close to
dreaming‹spirit communications, reincarnation memories, clairvoyant journeys into a
realm of astral phantasy where all times and places were seen in a new light, of Plato's
illustrations of the nature of the soul's life, of most real Osiris and Isis, of the lost Atlantis
and Lemuria, and of the god or teacher my parents had taken as theirs, the Hermetic
Christos.

While the tasteful but eccentric interior of the house in Alameda became a haven for Edwin and
Minnehaha Symmes, the outside grounds of the property had been planned with the children in mind.
Enclosed by a maze of high white stucco walls, the yard was landscaped with tall ferns which surrounded
a shallow fish pond and fountain. Radiating from the fountain were a number of stone paths leading to
other fountains, and to a studio at the back of the property. When Duncan and his sister tired of chasing
each other among the ferns, they held tea parties in their sand box, and straddled a fallen tree that had
been left in the yard for their amusement.

During the early part of 1923, the family once again retreated to Yosemite, but after Duncan and
his sister contracted measles that spring, they returned to Alameda and settled into their new house on a
more permanent basis. The return was also necessary for another reason‹ Duncan, then four years old,
began his formal education that September at the Everett School in Alameda, where he would remain

11
enrolled until the age of eight. And while Duncan was entering an expanded social world for the first time,
his parents were mobilizing themselves for a similar foray into the community. Minnehaha resumed her
work with various local orphanages, and Edwin severed his ties with the National Parks Service, opening
his own architectural office in San Francisco in 1924.

While their summers were spent travelling‹ sometimes to visit the Harris family cousins in Santa
Barbara, and sometimes to return to Hetch Hetchy in Yosemite‹ Robert and Barbara Symmes were
equally content with their life in Alameda. Edwin's sister Alvie Symmes Brumm and her husband Leo
moved into a house nearby at 1714 Pearl Street, and the two Symmes children joined their younger
cousins Leo, Jr. and Carol Brumm in various outdoor activities‹racing bicycles up and down the long
driveway at 1700 Pearl Street, and running through the spray of water from a garden hose during hot
summer days.

If there was anything unusual about Robert Duncan during those years it was made manifest in a
distant sullen gaze that sometimes came over his face. He and his sister were conscientiously attended
to by their stepparents and extended family, but the details of their adoptions were never hidden from
them. While a more complete emotional understanding of the situation set in only during their adolescent
years, throughout their childhoods they sensed that they were in some way a world apart from their
companions. Too, Duncan knew that the first six months of his life had been filled with uncertainties. Of
his natural mother's death and the attention he received in the care of his teenaged sisters he once
remarked, "only that period can account in my mind for the acute feelings of deprivation...that are in my
poems."

12
Robert Duncan: The Ambassador from Venus
Eight: The Oregon Trail

This land, where I stand, was all legend

in my grandfathers' time: cattle raiders,
animal tribes, priests, gold.
It was the West. Its vistas painters saw
in diffuse light, in melancholy,
in abysses left by glaciers as if they had been the sun
primordial carvings empty enormities
out of the rock.

‹Robert Duncan,
"A Poem Beginning with a Line by Pindar"

If Robert Duncan was a derivative poet, his first sources of derivation were the Harris family
women‹ his stepmother Minnehaha Harris Symmes, his aunt Fayetta Harris Philip and his grandmother
Mary Cooley Harris. As he said in an interview in 1985: "There's one real grandmother for me, and that's
my mother's mother. The family was a matriarchy." The Harrises were, by Duncan's description,
"mountain people". Born on October 20, 1855, Mary Cooley was the daughter of two Oregon Trail
pioneers, Elizabeth Hill and Miller Cooley. The Northwest territories had been explored by Lewis and
Clark during the early 1800s, and the wilderness there was of diverse terrains‹ from hilly vistas
surrounding the Columbia River, to thick blue-green valleys of pines, to acres of rolling flat wheat fields.
Its early settlers lived in an uneasy proximity to the sometimes hostile tribes indigenous to the area, and
violent skirmishes were not uncommon.

Mary Cooley was raised in the eastern part of what would later be the state of Oregon, not far
from the California border, and as a teenager she moved to the small town of Alturus where she met and
married a frontier school teacher named Gamaliel Fullenwider Harris. G.F. Harris's reputation as a hard
drinker and a conspirator with the Modoc Indians gained him a certain notoriety. He was one of the more
colorful characters in Modoc County‹ a small man with curly jet black hair and a southern accent, he
became deeply involved in the politics of the Pacific Northwest, as a member of the California State
Legislature, and as a Superior Court judge. During the Modoc War of 1872, Harris befriended a Modoc
known as Captain Jack who led negotiations with the United States Army in hopes of the establishing
reservation land for the local tribes. By October of 1873 the army had routed the Modocs and Captain
Jack was hanged. G.F. Harris quietly returned to his civic duties. Partly as a tribute to his friendship with
Captain Jack, and also in response to Longfellow's poem "Song of Hiawatha", when his youngest
daughter was born in 1887, Harris named her Minnehaha. As Fayetta Harris Philip wrote in her
autobiography, her younger sister's name seemed appropriate‹ "She loved to play in the water...around in

13
the lakes, and the horses would trot, and she would bounce up and down. If there was a pan of water
anyplace, she would love to play in it, so she was called Minne Ha Ha, play in the water."

Over the course of their marriage, the Harrises had five children, though their first two daughters
died in a diphtheria epidemic in 1878. In 1889 G.F. Harris abandoned the family, and his wife was left
with their three young daughters, Fayetta, Dee, and Minnehaha. Mary Harris sought refuge with her
father's family in Curry County, Oregon, and with relatives in Santa Barbara, California. In 1891 she
moved with the girls to a boarding house in San Francisco where they remained until the earthquake of
1906. Never without the help of a supportive extended family, Mary Harris secured educations for all
three of her children. In addition to Fayetta Harris Philip's accomplishments as a pharmacist, Dee Harris
became a physician, and Minnehaha completed a degree in Education at San Francisco State College in
1909. But the Harris girls were equally children of the 19th Century‹ witnesses to a culture that would
disappear by Robert Duncan's youth. When his Aunt Fayetta composed her autobiography during the
early 1960s, her clearest childhood recollections were of living on her grandfather Miller Cooley's cattle
ranch and making mud pies in Curry County's Rowdy Creek. Over the course of a single generation, the
family moved on from their humble beginnings amidst the log cabins, smokehouses and chicken coops of
Modoc county, to the gold rush city of San Francisco where Mary Harris worked at the Federal Mint on
Mission Street and her daughters completed college, married, and had families of their own.

Robert Duncan held fond memories of his adoptive grandmother Mary Cooley Harris. He
rendered her a mythological figure in The H.D. Book:

Close to the woodlore of her origins in frontier life, she had some natural witchcraft
perhaps. But then it may be too that all Grandmothers, as in fairytales, are Wise Women or
Priestesses of Mother Nature. I was but a boy when she died, and with her death, my family's tie
with the old wisdom-way was broken.

But as Barbara Jones remembered it, Mary Harris was also "a regular old grandma" whose
apartment on Howe Street in Oakland the Symmeses visited regularly. In that household the
grandchildren Barbara and Robert played together in a large sunroom filled with flowering plants, images
that conjured another memory for Robert Duncan‹

I would be put to bed among the potted plants by the wall that was all windows of a
sunroom or herbarium at my grandmother's, and as my elders talked in the inner chamber, I,
outside, could gaze at the night sky where some star was "mine" and watched over me, stars
were eyes, or the first star seen was a wish or would grant a wish.

What the elders spoke of in that inner chamber was a mystery to the children in the house. There
were hints of it as the voices drifted through the halls‹that there were stories not to be rehearse in front
the uninitiated, and that the adults "speaking in hushed or deepened voices, or speaking in voices that
were not their own, regarded myth as they regarded certain poems and pictures as speaking from the
realm of lost or hidden truth." It was in San Francisco before the turn of the century that Mary Harris's
interest in theosophy first emerged, a preoccupation that came to reverberate throughout the extended
Harris, Philip, and Symmes clans. Fayetta Harris Philip wrote in her autobiography about a particular
14
event that occurred during or around 1893 when her mother encountered an old acquaintance from
Oregon. While Mary Harris and the man were in an elevator together, he turned to her and cryptically
said "I think my wife has something to tell you." Soon after, Mary Harris met with the man's wife, and, as
family legend has it, through a medium she spoke to her two deceased daughters. Overwhelmed by this
communication from the spirit world, Harris joined together with a group of friends to form a Hermetic
Brotherhood, a makeshift "initiatory order" of students of theosophy who met regularly to conduct seances
and to receive instructions from the astral plane.

NOTES

CHAPTER VI

1. Conversation with Barbara Jones, January 17, 1998. If Jones is correct

the film was most likely an early silent production called Beau Brummell.

2. While Duncan was referred to as "cross-eyed", technically, his left eye

wandered and he sometimes appeared wall-eyed as well. Aaron Shurin and
Steve Abbott described the condition more clearly in the introductory notes
to a 1979 interview‹ that Duncan always had "one eye holding you down and
one eye roving." In medical terms, Duncan suffered from strabismus‹ an eye
muscle disorder which prevents both eyes from focusing on an object
simultaneously.

3. Robert Duncan. Roots and Branches, (14). See Ekbert Faas's Young Robert
Duncan, (19) for more interpretations of the effect this accident had on
Duncan's early development.

CHAPTER VII

4. Robert Duncan, The H.D. Book. Volume 1, Chapter 5 "Occult Matters,"

[Stony Brook, 1 (Fall 1968, 4-19].

5. Joseph Cardarelli. Interview with Robert Duncan, Baltimore, Maryland.

April 1985.

15
Ann Erickson

Karyatides
Irma & the other women in the warm pool walk elegantly
in a circle. She smiles with them, all in their
bathing suits, moving in slow unison, rotating
fingers, wrists, elbows, hip sockets, shoulders,
heads.

"Keep your hands under the water," a nearby white

haired lady says to her gently. The warm pool is
surrounded by a circle of glass windows and white
oleander bushes. Sun sweeps out of the clouds on
aquamarine water.

"Doesn't the bright sun hurt your eyes?" Hilda asks

her as they circle ("March this time; rotate your
thumbs----high step this time: piano fingers---")

The women wear gold & silver earrings, trifocals,

sunglasses. Their heads remain above water.

She worries a little tonight, walking back to the bus.

Has she overloaded her backpack at the Salvation
Army?
shopping at Salvation Army: penny poker. the malls
like what Hank said casinos are like: no clocks, no
windows, no day, no night.

she has the perfect blouse: high '50's, abstract art

print in squares of glowing light colors,
off-turquoise, off-coral, off-white, rough bordered
with fake expressionist black strokes, printed on
silky polyester she will be able to rinse out & hang
in the shower---with covered buttons.

she holds the blouse up to her skin in front of the

mirror & lights up with inner fireworks

she is in the '50's/ not the real '50's of course

covered with a dirty green lens, Marilyn Monroe in an
adult bureau drawer, but/ dream '50's where in the
persona of Audrey Hepburn, say, or even better, Suzy
Parker, she runs down the great avenues of New York
filled with wind, traffic, music, people----twinkling
lights in trees & corner shops---girls literally dance
down the street in Capezio shoes, toes pointed below
swirling skirts

music walking into the wooden floored Italian

delicatessen/ figs & almond cookies/ bus ride into the
dark

16
 Eight Stories
Cydney Chadwick

Morphing

There is an ovum. A sperm fertilizes it. There is an embryo that becomes a fetus. It gestates for nine
months and enters the world. When it is placed in its crib, the parents and other relatives peer at it.
It is one. It is two. It is a girl in a lace dress at Christmas dinner, crying and hanging onto her mother’s
velvet gown during the family photo.
There is trouble in kindergarten, she does not want to play house, pretends to set it on fire, which
upsets the other little girls; she does not want to take naps or eat Graham Crackers. There are eccentrics
on both sides. Her parents glare at each other, each thinking the others’ family peculiarities are the more
severe and problematic.
Then everyone relaxes because the girl now looks like her mother. Pretty, pretty, people exclaim, both
family and strangers. Since that is the case, it doesn’t really matter what she does. She punches a boy on
the playground and he does not hit her back, she can ignore her homework and only get a reprimand.
She is so cute.
During adolescence she grows, she changes. She no longer looks like her mother. Who is this
person? They scrutinize her. Ah, she is beginning to look like Bill’s side of the family. What a shame the
relatives cry, and secretly fear a need for rhinoplasty. Almost overnight she has gone from being one of
the most popular girls to a tall, lonely teen. As least she is tall people say. Great tits others comment.
The tall girl with her large breasts takes up basketball and joins the team. Here, she forges another
identity for herself. Her family goes to her games and cheer. But who is athletic they ask each other?
In college the girl settles into her features and once again looks like her mother. “A beautiful woman” is
how she is seen, and it startles her, for she has forgotten what it was like to be cultivated for her
appearance.
When she walks down the street she often sees her reflection in windows—what she perceives as
herself, her essence and being, never seems to be inside the image in the glass. This form, on which
approval was bestowed, that lost it, and receives it yet again, is like being inside a living, breathing
vertical chalk line, that shape made during homicide investigations, and this outline is the only thing that
separates her from the world.
She isn’t particularly concerned about the countenance she projects— and never was—but she knows
she will be monitored by her family for the next ten years or twenty, until they grow too old to care, or are
too preoccupied with their health to take an interest. She will continue to morph, first resembling one side
of the family and then the other, changing in tiny, infinitesimal ways—while she walks and talks, while she
eats, sleeps, has sex and ages, propelled along by the pull of gravity, the push of genetics.

17
 Screening

What? What did he say? The actor has just uttered a line. She whispers in his ear. When she is finished,
those around them are once again able to concentrate on the screen.
What was that? he bellows. She again leans over and mumbles something, undoubtedly filling him in
on the dialogue he is unable to hear. The audio is loud, almost too loud; the man must suffer from
extensive hearing loss to be unable to discern it. Huh? Shut up someone in the audience shouts. Shhh,
his wife reiterates.
There are several ways of thinking about this: one is that this poor old man in his declining years
cannot even enjoy a movie any longer. The other is that this individual was probably a self-centered lout
since he was young—not caring who he disturbed in public places. Or perhaps there is a history of
extreme frugality and he will not pay for a hearing device.
The man in the movie is a suave character who lies and cheats and has sex with lots of women, an
antihero the audience is supposed to like.
The antihero is having more sex. It is graphic, with moaning. The old man doesn’t need this interpreted
for him. He is quiet. Does he still get erections? Does his wife wish he didn’t?
Toward the end of the film it looks like the antihero will get his comeuppance, a Hollywood ending that
disappoints. The law has set a trap for him which he will undoubtedly fall for. There has been
foreshadowing. Why did he do that? the man yells. A group of four young men sitting in front of him turn
as if they rehearsed it and scream Dammit, shut up! They might be college boys, or the dark could make
them appear younger.
Ouch, the man hollers as his wife climbs over him, treading on his foot. She is moving down the aisle,
she is opening the door, throwing a long rectangle of light onto the back rows, a line of patrons squinting
in the sudden brightness. The door falls shut again. The ensuing silence makes it seem like a different
movie.
Someone enters the theatre. The man looks up but the figure keeps moving, sits down in one of the
front rows. It could be someone who has arrived early for the next screening.
The final song on the soundtrack is playing and credits drift down the screen. People are beginning to
gather their things and head to the exit. Some of the lights go up, and those further down the row climb
over the man who is still in his seat, shouting Linnea! Linnea! Linnea!

Warping

She dyes her hair blonde, takes up the hems of her skirts and what follows is a husband. Her husband is
a man who likes blonde hair and short skirts—he encourages her to keep bleaching, and to work on those
hems. A year or so into their marriage, the man informs her he has a way with women. The woman is
fairly certain he does not have a way with her, for she often regrets having married him. Naturally he does
not inform her of his ex-wives who threw him out, or his former girlfriends who’d changed their phone
numbers and threatened to get restraining orders.

18
 While they are out in public, the man will see a young woman in a vehicle decreasing her speed, or
circling the block, and will say, See that young woman over there, she wants me. There is definite
attraction. The young woman in question—and many others—will often give up trying to park on the
street, and put their cars in a nearby garage, afterwards obliviously passing the couple on the sidewalk.
Well, she sees I am with you, is how he explains it.
As the marriage continues, the man comes to believe his fictions. He is a lady-killer and his wife is
lucky he stays around. To solidify his advantage, he threatens her with the affairs he might have any
moment. Over time his stories begin to consume the day-to-day reality, and the man’s fictions become his
wife’s as well.
Many years later the woman still bleaches what is left of her hair, and wears short skirts. She
continues to attract attention, but more in the manner of confusion and shock. She trails after her
husband, suspicious he is having illicit affairs with beautiful women in their twenties. The man adjusts his
support hose and says that although young women still desire him, are quite admiring and willing, he’s
has put that sort of thing on hold for a time, and does she want to accompany him to the bank so he can
deposit his pension check? She takes his arm and they slowly make their way down First Avenue. He
occasionally stops to lean against a building to rest. As he does so, she keeps her eye out for young
women on the street who might be trying to seduce him. When they pass plate glass, they straighten their
posture and hold up their heads, for seeing their reflections makes them quietly hope they are important.

Imploding

He has a chance to be one of the best ever, has the correct body type, and the talent. Unlike most, he
performs better before a large stadium crowd. He has begun to win medals and receive notoriety—
photographs of him, arms open, breaking the tape—or on a podium holding a medal are frequently in the
papers.
He begins skipping practices, starts to drink scotch and eat fattening food. There is nothing I love
anymore.
Get it together his coach shouts. Think of all the years we’ve spent. . . .
But the man is too close to the years, cannot differentiate them from the present and no longer knows
what they mean. By the season’s end he has lost three major competitions and does not make the world
team. His coach drops him.
When he is older, he gets up morning after morning to teach what he used to do so consummately, so
sublimely—to youths who will never achieve the same. Occasionally after practice a parent of one of the
children he coaches musters the courage to shyly ask him what happened, and will look away. Our world
is so insular he says, indicating the track. It forces us to turn in on ourselves, and there was no place to
go inside me.

19
 Receding
(a well-traveled path)

Today the young woman is to meet with her writing professor. She has worked on her stories for several
weeks, has read them aloud to herself and showed them to her peers, trying to make them as polished as
possible before the tutorial. She changes the cartridge of her printer and prints out clear, dark copies so
they will be easy to read, puts the stories in her book bag and hurries to the cafe. Her writing professor
said he would prefer to meet in a place that plays opera and serves wine, telling her it relaxes him and will
make him a better judge of her work. She wishes the sessions could continue to take place on campus,
since she gets together with her friends afterwards in the student lounge, but she is proud he has taken
an interest in her writing and agrees to the cafe conference.
The professor is waiting when she arrives, a carafe and two glasses on the table. The woman doesn’t
really want any wine, as drinking it in the afternoon gives her a headache, but she supposes she should
take a little to be polite. He asks for her stories, and suggests they order some food, handing her a menu.
He quickly glances over her work, not taking the trouble to remove his pen from his shirt pocket to write
any comments, looks up and says not bad, saving his compliments for her eyes and hairstyle.
He asks her what bands she likes, mentions several names in alternative rock, so she will think him
contemporary and peer-like. He pays the check and suggests they meet again in two weeks, same time,
same place.
While driving back to campus the young woman is almost in tears, is angry and humiliated. Why won’t
the writing professor take her work seriously? Is because she wears decent clothes and has her hair
professionally cut? If she wore ripped jeans and shaved her head would he at least make suggestions in
the margins?
Maybe she should see the department head and try and study with someone else, but she would have
to get special permission to do that and what could she say to receive it, save tell the truth? She knows
that if she goes to the dean, the professor will retaliate. She’ll be branded a troublemaker in a mostly male
department.
At the edges of her anger, she is embarrassed and uncomfortable. The professor has forgotten how
fatuous and strange people appear when they try to behave in a youthful manner, after passing from
youth so long ago.
She remembers reading about how women were once supposed to feel flattered, privileged when
singled out as sex objects by men with power, but as the earth rotated and time receded, the professor
rejected feminism, computers and other facts of everyday existence, and began to cling to a ghost
reality—or has the world hurled forward without him noticing?
Before taking the turn that leads to campus, the young woman passes a pawn shop, and slams on her
brakes to look for a parking place. She shall buy herself a hocked engagement ring, and the next time
she sees the professor will tell him she has become engaged to her boyfriend. To follow his line of
thinking, he will then see her as a claim already staked out by another man—there being a male involved
will suffice, she thinks, to keep him at bay.
She finds a gold ring with a little diamond, which the proprietor will sell her for fifty dollars, and pays
with her credit card, chalking it up to yet another school expense.
20
 Careening

It was once a country lane, is now a well-traveled road, a short cut for commuters to access the freeway.
The area remains an enclave of countryside, surrounded by suburbs.
Animals flock here, their original habitats destroyed by the sprawl. The red-winged blackbird makes its
nest in hayfields. Raccoons, possums and other indigenous creatures arrive, as do feral cats.
Some of the cats are cultivated by those who live in the area. Country-dwellers buy cans of cat food
and leave them in back yards—in the shade of large trees, or on patios. The kittens may tentatively bond
with those predisposed to liking the cats, but this bond is tenuous—a sudden move by the cat fancier
could irrevocably spook the animal. The adult felines hiss and spit, their striped faces contorted with
dislike and distrust.
Encouraged by the young cats’ response, the country-dwellers purchase cat brushes and small rubber
balls. The animals stare at the brushes or shiny silver combs and slink away under bushes, or will watch,
puzzled, as the balls roll over ground-cover into clusters of weeds.
Although these animals do not make satisfactory pets, people wandering about their homes in between
tasks will watch them from windows or from behind bushes in their gardens, fascinated by the cats
handsomeness, their lustrous coats, glinting green eyes and nonchalant grace.
Most of the animals living in the country are compelled to explore other fields and pastures, which often
leads to their crossing the road. At the beginning of any given day, when fog encloses the area like a
damp grey umbrella, there could be a random string of carcasses lying over the five mile stretch.
Every morning the country dwellers come out of their houses in pajamas or bathrobes, still weighted
with sleep, and slowly make their way down long driveways to the morning paper, keeping their eyes
fixed on the gravel. At the driveway’s end, anxiety tightens their chests and breathing is difficult. With
silent supplication they take deep breaths, hoping the expanse of road before them will be free of lifeless
bodies when they finally, and with apprehension, raise their eyes. As fog veils their faces and hands they
know it has come of effect them more than they ever imagined, these misty morning confrontations.

Renouncing

She watches as they blow out all the votive candles, climb statues of St. Joseph and the Virgin Mary.
When they jump to the floor they are flushed and excited. What else? The boy’s friend thinks they should
take their clothes off and run up and down the aisles naked. Too risky, they decide. I know, the altar boy
sprints to the altar. The key is in the tabernacle. He turns it, reaches his hand inside, takes a package of
communion wafers and rips it open. His little sister gasps from one of the pews. Her brother and his
friend stuff some into their mouths and pronouncedly chew. After swallowing they rush over to the pew
and the girl’s brother thrusts some wafers to her lips. She turns her head away and refuses to open her
mouth, but he presses her jawbones with both hands, forces her mouth open and shoves one in before
she is able to push him away. It’s probably a sin to spit it out, blessed or not he gloats. The boys eat the
communion wafers like they are candy, but the girl swallows reluctantly, ashamed she isn’t letting it
dissolve on her tongue as she was taught to do.
21
 When they finish the packet the boys scan the church. Pounding on the organ might attract the
attention of the priest, or the cleaning lady. Her brother walks to the altar and stops to think. He tries a
door behind the altar that the priest enters through every Sunday. It opens.
Try and find the wine his friend mutters. They search, but the cabinets are locked. There is a row of
priest’s cassocks hung on a portable rack. The altar boy grabs his sister. Put this on. The boys put the
cassock over her clothes and button it up. The sleeves hang down past her knees, and the gown spills
out over the floor. Her brother spreads his legs and indicates she should get down on her hands and
knees and crawl through them. Do it or we’ll say you stole the communion wafers. You know they’ll
believe me. As she is crawling he spanks her. His friend stands a foot behind him and does the same.
More! The girl turns around and crawls back through their legs while they continue slapping her. The
cassock drags across the floor, collecting dust, becomes entangled in the boys’ feet and legs. Crawl,
crawl the boys shout excitedly as their adrenaline flows and they spank harder.
•••
The girl who teaches their catechism class has knobby knees that jut out above her knee socks, and likes
to talk about the hairshirts of St. Elizabeth.
She is frightened of her young students, and everyone knows that mayhem could erupt at any moment,
or the children could simply rise, go out doors and play, as they once did, leaving the startled student-
teacher open-mouthed, standing before a blackboard, alone in an empty room. It is only the threat of the
parish priest bursting in and yelling test that keeps the children in check. When he enters and cries test,
the class is supposed to take a blank piece of paper and write down responses to questions he fires at
them, such as, “What is the judgment called which will be passed on each one of us immediately after
death?” “Why do we honor relics?” or, “Is the Holy Ghost a dove?” The little girl knows her catechism well
and continually receives the priest’s well done—while just as continually, a boy three seats down who
does not bother to write anything, is swatted alongside the head with his catechism book by the now irate
and enraged padre.
On Easter Sunday as the priest is uttering: “Do you not know that a little yeast has its effect all through
the dough? Get rid of the old yeast to make yourselves fresh dough, unleavened loaves, as it were; Christ
our Passover has been sacrificed. Let us celebrate the feast not with the old yeast, that of corruption and
wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth,” and the little girl grows dizzy, faints
and has to spend the rest of the mass outdoors on the front steps of the church, her head between her
legs. Her concerned father comes out now and again to check on her. When the mass is over, the family
rejoins the girl and they solemnly shuffle to the parking lot.
They hope the little girl is not so ill as to cause them to miss brunch.
As they drive to the restaurant, her alter boy brother sullenly leans over and mumbles: you always did
have to be the center of attention.

•••
When in her early 20s the young woman visits New York City for the first time, and while walking down
Fifth Avenue she sees a cathedral, guesses it to be St. Patrick’s. She is hesitant about whether or not to
enter, not having been inside a church since she was approaching adolescence, when her parents

22
decided The Church’s views on birth control and divorce were out of touch with the contemporary world,
and none of them needed attend any longer.
St. Patrick’s, though, is also a famous tourist attraction, and many of its stained glass windows were
made in Chartes. She goes up the stairs. In the nave there are many tourists milling about, and signs
saying “No Flash Photography.” Further inside, the architecture and dimensions of the church are
intimidating. The scent of votive candle wax, and that church smell of mustiness and time, is causing her
stomach to tighten, her body to tense. She finds herself reflexively placing her hand in holy water and
shocked, pulls it back out. The candles make spitting sounds as they splutter and burn. While she stands
next to a pew she finds her knees bending in genuflection, hangs onto the thick, brown wood to stay
upright. The altar is a long way off. Interspersed among the pews are those with heads bent in prayer,
unself-conscious and remote in their intensity. She is embarrassed, as if catching them in an extremely
private act. As she grips the pew, she is staggered that something as innocuous as walking into a place
of stones, stained glass and spires is flinging her back to the state of being too little and terrified, and no
one even notices how she is being reeled back into the past, delivered there by sensory receptors and
somatic senses, psyche and flesh.

Examining

Tell me what you see. His head is in a contraption, a lens several inches from his eye. He notes some
letters, black against a white background in a sans serif type, probably Helvetica, but that is not what he
says.
He is asked to read smaller and smaller rows of letters until he is no longer able to distinguish them,
after which the doctor makes notes on a sheet of paper, moves the contraption to the other side of his
face and puts a lens to his other eye. If there are still letters showing it is not apparent, and the physician
becomes annoyed, as if the man is not trying. But he sees only some black lines, blurred grays, a
landscape of abstraction. As he attempts to focus, staring intently into the strange vista, his is able to
discern a very tall mountain range, a woman weeping at the bottom, her tears minuscule black dots
moving down her face. Perhaps the woman weeps because unlike the alps, her time on earth is minimal,
her being in relation to such geology insignificant.
The physician exchanges the lens for several others until the scene becomes obscured and letters
stand in a line before the man, dark and brightly delineated.

23
Jono Schneider

(excerpt) The Parable

It was essential that I find her. I had wanted her to leave us, for although I needed to prove myself
to him (a task I was -- and I still am -- relcutant to perform), now that I had both the floor and his attention,
I could not stop myself from speaking. I had a lot to say, too much to say -- this holds true even now -- but
this was less the reason for my editorials than the silence which threatened me on all sides. This silence
was larger than him, I knew -- I now know this -- but I also knew that he would not be lost in the middle of
it, that if it swallowed him, he would remain unharmed, for silence regularly surrounded him, and he lived
in a strange communion with it. For me, silence was more than the absence of speech, it was the
absence of words, and it meant that both things and whatever it was possible to think about them
disappeared when the words disappeared. Silence was an absence I could not withstand, as my work
was based on being able to affirm the world to others through the sounds I made, the sounds becoming
words when I pointed to things after speaking the words for them. But the world was already there for
him, and if I had been able to see this clearly, as I now do, I would have spoken for my own reasons and
not what I thought his reasons to be (for I could never know these reasons), or I would have returned to
my seat and carefully planned out the next stage in my ongoing work. I can understand the situation quite
easily now: it arose out of an originary conflict between the complex and simple natures of the self -- but
to say even this is to say too much about it, since it was the nature of the other over which we were each
arguing. And here I have also overstepped the boundaries of common speech, for we weren't talking at
all, we were sitting in our chairs, the only sound in the room being that of our mouths chewing the food
that our forks lifted swiftly off of our plates.
(I was in need of the limits that she imposed on me: her arched eyebrows, her tender reason,
and, above all, her empathetic calm, which, as I listen to their voices through the wall, I try to emulate by
relaxing my arms, sitting extremely still, holding his toothpick between my forefinger and thumb and
pressing its points into them until the words arrive and I can work again.)

But soon they were talking once more, talking with the ease of two people tossing a ball between
them, catching each comment and lobbing its counterpart back into the air. I seemed to have drifted off,
or perhaps I was so concerned with how to translate his argument into terms with which I could compete
that I had not heard them. In any event, she amazed me -- she could nod her head at what he was saying
and reject it with a smile that instructed him to rethink his position but encouraged him to try again
regardless of how many times he failed. And now I realize why I wasn't talking -- it was because I was
eating, and I was certain that, after what he had told me about my clothes, if he looked at me while I
spoke with my mouth full, he would stand up and ask me firmly to close the door behind me. I chewed my
24
food carefully and silently, mouthing signs of respect at them, showing them my appreciation for this food;
I was hoping that my respect would dim the brightness in his face when he glared at me. He aspired to
the condition of gratitude, but it was the place I now occupied, sitting silently between my colleagues,
slowly chewing my food while my colleagues discussed their work habits, that taught me this condition.
Now she and I were listening to the tape I had made -- this was before she had had a chance to
hear his tape, before I knew that he had even made one -- and we were noting where the pitch of his
voice rose and fell, we were writing down the words he repeated most often, we were making a list of his
words and interpreting the meanings of his most important ideas. I pushed the toothpick in and out of my
mouth with my tongue; I made a game out of catching it in the palm of my hand when I pushed it into the
air. She grabbed me during one of these episodes, and the toothpick dropped to the ground and rolled
across the floor.
"Did you hear the words that he said, just there?"
But I had not; she had picked a point on the tape where the only sound -- besides silence -- was
that of at least two forks scraping the bottoms of paper plates. I shook my head; she rewound the tape
and played it again. Still, I heard nothing -- although I must have wanted to hear nothing, for what he had
said, which I then learned only after she told it to me, was so incomprehensible that I immediately forgot
it, and I had to ask her to repeat it for me several times throughout the evening and again in the morning
over breakfast.
"Did you hear what he said to you?"
The tension in her voice -- a tension heightened by the look on her face (she had forced her
mouth open; her mouth was frozen in such a way that each second I looked at it could have been the
moment immediately after the words had left her mouth) -- this tension was aimed at me and me alone,
although if he had been between us he would have misread her force, thinking that I had been the cause
of it, meaning that if he had been between us, he would have defended her against me. Her tension was
aimed at getting me to concentrate solely on his voice; she was telling me -- had I realized this, I would
have treated her with more subtlety -- she said that it was what he had said that should matter to me, and
that it was through speech alone that he would challenge my use of language. This challenge was to be
my limitation, and I would surely need my agility at solving highly complex problems of cognition, not to
mention my rapt attention -- well, I would need everything to meet his challenge. Certainly language had
never been something that I had had difficulty with; in any event, it had neither baffled me into silence, nor
had its silence muffled me, and even now, as I hear them through the wall, mumbling, perhaps even
dictating, new policies to one another, I can easily reconstruct their words, phrases, and sentences --
even those very paragraphs which are responsible for their arguments, for their discussions are based on
the most competent rationalism that it is possible for thinking, speaking beings to know. I have trained
myself in these grammars so that I can learn what it is that they will do with me, and what will happen
after I have left this place. But I am not there as of yet, and I cannot tell what end this shall all come to
after I have persuaded the committee that I have committed no crimes.
The tension which she had marked for me had reached me nevertheless, and here I can honestly
say -- an honesty of his that you will undoubtedly say had rubbed off on me -- I can honestly say that I
was slightly unnerved, I felt that tired tremor in the stomach that follows a large meal eaten much too
quickly. Yes, I was prepared for him, I could outwit him, I could dismantle his reasoning because I could
25
resemble it with my own as a way of tricking him -- none of this worried me, I can clearly see this in the
light of the present, that is certain; no, what concerned me were two things: the first was the matter of the
tape recorder, which -- it is true, I had always used it in all of my interactions with others in order to better
myself -- I was afraid would taint me in my own eyes, a devaluation which he would be sure to notice
since I would be unable to meet his eyes with my own. My second concern was, of course, the toothpick:
he had given it to me as a simple matter of courtesy after the meal, and it is quite possible that his
reasons for doing this were selfish, since it was much more acceptable to speak with someone whose
teeth had recently been cleaned. But the toothpick was an act of charity, a gift of friendship, and even if
the bonds of that friendship were weak, the fact that he had established these bonds deepened his
mystery: yes, he had judged me, but, strangely, he had also cared for me, even if his care further obliged
his dislike of me to intensify.
There is a hole in the wall, and from time to time I look through it. I am not hopeful that anything
will come from all of this, so I do not look into the hallway to see what will happen to me or if anyone is
coming for me; I look to amuse myself, to see what new couplings have taken place since I have arrived.
There are three doors in the hallway -- all are painted white and appear locked (I have seen no one walk
through them). Looking into the hall does not occupy the whole of my days here; with all the other duties I
have been assigned, I am hardly able to find even an hour to spend gazing illicitly into it; nevertheless, if
one of the doors across the hallway had been opened, I would not have been able to avoid hearing it -- it
would have echoed off the walls here in my chamber and surely roused me from sleep.
I am looking through the hole into the hallway at this very moment; the knob on the middle door is
turning, and the door slowly opens; she steps into the hallway, smiling; he is locking the door behind him;
after he puts the keys back into his pocket, they lock arms. She puts a toothpick in her mouth, and I
notice something whose peculiarity is still with me now -- it is a puzzle much like the parable of the dead
man who is still dying and who is still awaiting his illness -- they are both dressed in the same manner as
myself. We are all wearing the same grey, loose work clothes now, although mine hang just a little more
loosely on my body, since I have been eating less since I have come here. They have been feeding me
quite often -- more often than when I spent my wages on feeding myself -- and the food is irresistable, but
the more that I eat their food, the less I seem to weigh; I cannot verify this, however, as I have not
weighed myself since I have been here.

All three of us are wearing the same loose, grey work uniforms -- the irony of this situation usurps
my speech and interrupts my story -- and yet it was my clothing that had caused his initial disapproval of
who I appeared to be. Now my clothing was as equally important as his, so that if we faced each other, he
would have had to look at me differently than before. It is possible -- and this occurs to me only now,
when I am unable to see him any longer -- that his disapproval of my clothing was not a disapproval of me
at all, but a desire, a need even, to see me wearing what he was wearing, perhaps his desire was to unite
with me, and I, by wearing the clothes that I was wearing, had frustrated and stunted those desires. By
treating me the way he did -- submitting the tape to the committee without my knowing it -- he made sure
that I would be in uniform, and now we were brothers, for as long as I wore what I chose to wear, he
would never have access to me. Now, by imprisoning me, he had shown me that his judgment was in my
26
favor, that his judgment had provided everything for me. Granted, I was no longer free, but then, my work
(my speeches) had detained my freedom long ago. So I was free now -- free to unite with him over my
own failure; it was to him that I owed both this failure and my gratitude. I had failed in his eyes to prove
that I deserved the freedom I had claimed for myself; he exposed this failure to the committee and then
defended me before them. They had shown mercy with regards to my case only because he had
explained to them how I looked and what I was doing with my body when I spoke, while I silently ate the
food that she had offered me. He had given them the tape of my voice and his report offered my body up
to them while his eloquence verified the truth of its movements.
How could he who had judged me have saved me? Only if he didn't save me, only if, in saving
me, he judged me even further. By acknowledging and embarking upon this line of reasoning, I may yet
unravel the parable of the dead man who is not yet dead, who has yet to receive the illness which his
created fate promises him:

A perfectly healthy man is lying in bed with the bedclothes pulled up around his
face, the blinds drawn, and the windows in the room closed. The table beside his bed is
littered with assorted bottles and plastic cylinders containing pills and liquid medicines. A
friend comes to see him, and, seeing the condition the man is apparently in, asks him if
he is ill.
"I will soon be if I wait long enough."
"Do you mean that you are waiting for death?" The friend stands with his back to
the window when he speaks.
"I am awaiting illness. I will be ready for it when it comes; if death follows, I shall
be satisfied because I will have withstood it."
"How will you have withstood death? If death takes you, you will not have won
out over it!"
The man pulls the covers up over his chin. "I will have withstood death because I
have invited it into my house."
"So death will have come for you because you have willed it to come!" And now
the friend, who shuts the door on his way out of the room, lets out a soft cry as he locks it
behind him.

This reasoning of the man's who, by pretending he is ill, becomes ill in order to defeat death itself,
is what I, too, have been up against with my work and my colleague: through his hatred, and then his
defense, of me, and how he invited me into his house -- he sleeps in the room adjacent to this one, I now
know this. He also gave me the clothes off of his back; in fact, he had created the clothes on mine. And,
just like the man who is already dead from the moment he awaits death -- to await death is to invite it, and
to invite death is to succumb to it -- he had decided everything about me the moment I stepped across the
threshold of her office and into their conversation; when he looked at me and saw my clothes, he saw me
in the work suit that he had pitched to the committee; if he could put me in that suit, the committee would
accept his proposal, and I would stop my speeches since the committee would only be looking at and not
listening to me. That I was an intellectual would be forgotten; to them I would only exist as a model of
27
what a man should look like, how a man should carry his thin -- his too thin -- body, and how much space
a man should take up when he walks. And though the friend in the parable appears concerned about the
man who is not yet ill, he is in fact hastening his death because he is the one who speaks last in the story,
and it is he who shuts and locks the door behind him before the sick man is able to reply to him. He had
escorted me to this room and told me to wait here for the committee, who had some questions for me
regarding the number of voices on his tape, and he shut the door and locked it behind him while I wait for
death, while I waited for the committee, to come to me.

28
Christopher Reiner
excerpt from Pain

OUR OLD DILEMMA

Periodically, the woman in the apartment across the street, one floor
down, but facing this direction, looks out the window for no reason except
possibly to see if there is something new in the room. Another expensive
piece of furniture, another well-dressed, good looking kid from one of the
office buildings. Always after dark.
Don't worry (he wants to tell her) it's just another member of my
extended family.
What a weird thought, and exciting. He feels sorry for the woman. Maybe,
not sorry. Because obviously you can't know someone is watching you unless
you've been watching them. But he can't really see what she looks like, not
very well, with the way the light cuts off her expression. And the figure
itself is inscrutable, turning his curiosity back around ("you figure it
out"). Tonight there are three of them here in the living room, including
one who is guilty of an actual crime. More than one crime, he says. And it's
hard to decide which is worse. The other plays guitar. In fact, he has one
with him, which he was playing just this evening. (That's the same one,
right?)

II

Have a drink. Is it still coming down out there like it was? And in
the middle of summer, it seems like.
Here's a postcard, from where, the mountains. People actually dance like
that, it says here. What sort of music would inspire such a thing?
I've seen nights like this become quite beautiful. The clouds move to
the sides, the moon intervenes. And suddenly it's like being out in the
country again.

III

Out of the country. Anywhere. Have you ever had someone follow you
around? I have. I had someone take my bags and head straight into a crowd.
I think I'm starting to lose my hearing. I wake up early in the morning
and all I hear is the sound you'd hear after a loud bang. Like something
really bad has just happened.
I was so exhausted, I came home and cried. And I looked at my face and I
saw that I had been crying for a long time and must not have even noticed.
Eyeliner all over. And all over my hands. And my collar and the shoulder of
my coat ripped.

IV

You should stay with me here. You should all stay with me here. Yes,
don't think it to death. And don't laugh. It's a big place. There'd be a
whole room we wouldn't use.
Look at the sky. It's just like I said it would be. Spectacular. And
you'd never know it from my explanation. I could go on and on, even until
you form a kind of mental picture. But it wouldn't be the same. When you see
it, the way you see it now, chances are you might not associate it with what
29
I was saying. Or even remember that I said it.
That's why I gave up writing. I found I couldn't do nature. And then I
thought, well, I can't really do people very well either. I thought I knew
what they wore. I thought I knew what it would be like to hold each one
close to me and stroke their arms. But I didn't. And I finally was just
like, who are these people. I expected too much from them. But they weren't
the only people in the world.

Look over there.

It is the woman across the way, or it may have been. But by the time
they looked she was gone, so she might not have seen, or didn't care
tonight. But now he will have to explain. And if he doesn't want them to
know exactly what he was talking about (which would be understandable), he
will have to make something up.
She's an exhibitionist, he says. And if we wait long enough, here in the
dark, you'll see that I'm right.

VI

Now.
What was I saying?
Well, but the important thing is, what is there to do with your life?

30
John High

the Desire Notebooks

from
Hezhen’s journal

Who gives you the words?

Why don't you ask where I found the paper, Ezekiel says to Sisdel.
Look there are raspberries on our vines!
Tell mysteries to those worthy of mysteries? Mika asks.
The dead being buried in gardens today.ÿ
Why our need for repentance? Virgil burps.
If divided we'll be filled with darkness, Hezhen caws.
There are human shells, older than our story, Sisdel insists.
All day the sun has remained behind the clouds, yes.
They're scattered about the road...these human shells, Hezhen hisses.
He hadn't translated the chapter that speaks of the child?
So naturally the captain is timid as he watches her in this sky which could
again become a night.
Our birth into the world of men?
A moment of horizons, Sisdel.
Lean into your hips, your sex, your mouth she smiles while pointing at the
sky....

the sentence that bore her

When the centuries meet. As they start through the gate she mouths these,
her father's words. He glances about at the fallen architecture surrounding
her childhood home. All of the inner rooms blackened, destroyed, though some
of the walls have miraculously survived the years. And this is why she has
brought him here. An incredibly bright sun in the cold sky. The red brick
31
crumbled and scattered about the yard. The shadows of grey slanting inward
from the cedar and oak trees as he watches her pass, waiting for some clue.
Though she will not tell him why. Why she has brought him here. The yellow
hue of her scarf floating, it seems to him now, behind her.
A man who stops in the middle of the road? she asks. As if the sentence
contained some explanation for her sudden memory of home, her days in the
city before leaving to find her father and the monks. It had been after her
mother's disappearance when she was still a girl. A man who stops in the
middle of the road. Who will ask you these questions without me, she laughs
arrogantly, pointing toward the house. You have to admit that for the moment
at least, the streets are calm.
Winter passing. For the most part, the soldiers yielding to the decrees
of the new regime.
Of course he's been wanting to meet you. My father, you see, once stood
in the doorway of the house before you. He was raised in this house.
A harsh wind from the linden trees on his face.
Of course, he's always wanted to meet you, she whispers again, stroking
his face in an effort to reassure him.
Don't be frightened.
I'm not frightened.
A man who stops in the middle of the road?
He hadn't believed her when she told him about her ghost. But now he saw
the door. As if the door of her past, the door of this house, might actually
open.
There are new wars erupting in the outlying districts of the former
empire, she says. Though no one understands these conflicts.
He is unsure who she is talking to. Though occasionally she glances over
at him with what seems to be an obligatory smile.
The family graveyard to their right filled with wooden crosses, a stretch
of bombed buildings to the south of the stone white house.
Is your father buried here?
She studies the stillness remembering his long red hair, the mustard
stains on his chin, his wire-rimmed glasses. His proper manners before he
began his final study.
So much depends on the harvest now, she begins, strolling past the porch,
pointing toward the former garden where the remains of a marble bench still
stand. Whether the workers return to the fields... she goes on. There's
electricity in our room for a full eight hours a day. A man who stops in the
middle of the road and waits at the fork for Providence?
Why had she invented the sentence of a ghost?
His long hair reached down to his shoulders, thinning and red, and my
32
father had a beard, she quipped, skipping over the dead lilac bush. His
handsome three piece white uniform, his simple black shoes, she smiles,
kissing her own hand and placing it on his forehead.
He gave me the Notebooks.
I know it's time for us to find our own home.
She takes his hand. And I know you better now.
When I was young, the first time I was young, I lived in that room over
there. She directs his eyes to the skeletal remains of the mansion to their
right. I didn't really know my mother, but she was very beautiful . He
would come home late after he entered officers' training school. He met my
mother at a ball before the revolution began.
See the room up top, to your right. That was my room....
Then my father began his studies, his writing to the Gnostic sects that
once inhabited this city.
What's his name?
What's your name? It doesn't matter. He left when I was young. To find
my mother. To find the monks. But eventually I found them. It was with the
same maps you have discovered.
She points to the garden, gestures somewhat tenuously at two boys who
have come around the corner of the courtyard. One of the boys begins to throw
up.
They won't bother us.
Yes, the body is buried here. I wish I had known them better.
Scarecrows scattered throughout the courtyard.
The passage between the buildings clear, a streak of almost bluish sun
breaking through the clouds. The exposed foundation of the once beautiful
mansion now filled with broken furniture, glass, strewn pieces of metal and
wood. He remembers the photographs she has shown him . Each of the adjacent
rooms painted an off-white, the columns of the courtyard itself all black
with benches running along side the small pockets of lilac gardens.
Only this, the image continues, she says, turning. Are you prepared for
this, in your Notebooks, she says. No, I don't think so. Because there are
no more countries and deep down, you are a soldier. Otherwise, you wouldn't
have gone ahead with the bombing that night, knowing what you knew. Knowing
it because it was I who made sure your unit knew. But I didn't think you
would go through with it with me inside--with my girl waiting for us both
outside.
Of course. All the trains, they're behind us now.
There's a church you know, not far away from here. Would you like to go
there?
He looks about.
33
 Why, the litanies and liturgies, the psalms, the angels who visit the
bell towers.
She takes a step back, almost cautiously.
This is his grave. Is it not, mother?
She points at one of the wooden crosses in the family cemetery, sits in
the small patch nearby. How could I expect you to understand?
In the coming spring air, a smell of silence.
I hope that it's true, that spring will arrive. Because I have nothing
against it, she says.
Though the walls and the roof remain, there are no floors to the
mansion. A radiator stands, oddly, mounted beneath a window, where her bed
had once been. He can imagine it all as it had been, even without the
photographs. Her table and chair by the window. The kitchen where she would
dance for her father.
She turns and smiles, broadly.
I think we should go now, she tells him, taking a cigarette from his
pocket.
As they start through the gate, he glances back at the home, all of the
rooms blackened, fallen in, the crumbled red brick scattered about the
grounds. Shadows of green slanting inward from the cedar and oak trees.
Moscow?
A man who stops in the middle of the road and waits at the fork for
Providence, she mutters now, putting her arm through his. If Providence
doesn't intervene, who will go further.

Sisdel says--

He found himself stumbling about the warming streets of the finished

winter early the next morning, increasingly aware of his blindness....Sisdel
begins, turning this chapter in their book of wandering and glancing about
expectantly at the others. How had it escaped him? Sisdel gestures to Ezekiel
as the monks start their morning stroll across the walnut fields. The black
hat she had been wearing the previous afternoon. The one she had found along
the road during the storms. It was obvious. Oh yes, the hat was alive. When
they came home later that evening she put it on and took it off throughout
their night, just to annoy him.... And her white blouse Sisdel goes on--the
one which had once been his favorite, and her red scarf--even the gloves. He
could touch, even smell these things, though he could no longer see them.
As the man walked along the old mooring road toward the outskirts of
town, he watched the crows swooping low over the river. Sisdel sighs, taking
a deep breath, keeping a pace with Ezekiel while holding tight to Blind
34
Mika's arm.....These birds he could see all right, yet the man sensed his
balance was off. Everything seemed like it was changing weight, changing
form, even density.
Yet, while walking along any road, his vision was more or less fine,
Sisdel nods. He lit a cigarette and glanced down the long mysterious road.
Studied the flight of the crows, and sensed that they, too, had somehow been
summoned to follow him. Flying over the thick line of white buildings to the
south of the river. The red beaked crow now perched high among the birch
trees some fifty years ahead. Why, she had even held her blouse under his
nose the night before. And her blouse had informed him then: if your son
asked for bread, would you give him as stone? This bothered the man,
naturally.
What do you want? he had asked her. Not that he expected a riddle he
could understand, but he wanted one. She glared up at him as if surprised,
perhaps even annoyed.
I asked you once, and I'll ask you again.
What do you want?
Well maybe these Notebooks will be enough. What do you think?
The monks begin to count the fallen walnuts which are filled with dust
and rain.....
They had spent the better part of the night arguing, gradually getting
drunk....Sisdel continues, placing two small walnuts over Mika's white eyes.
She touched the sides of her stomach often, but the man didn't notice any of
this.
Naturally, Hezhen agrees.
The sun going down on the balcony overlooking the parading soldiers on
horseback. Some girls had been skipping rope in the park earlier.
She pushed him away from the table, spreading the pages across the floor.
They're travelling toward the river, she began, darting her glance from
his face to the face of the page.

They're travelling to the river.

Indeed!
An exodus?
Because they have excused themselves!
Exhausted by the moon?
Or the sun.
A slight hue of turquois edging along the horizon.
A man can be seen as an archway!
A woman then?
The stone the builders rejected is the corner stone....
35
Blessed where you have been executed.
The apostle puts out the morning coals, starts to fall from the sky.
And a woman carries a child!
Belly of those who desire be filled....
Our child written on the face.

Whatever you tell us will emerge in the fields!

She pronounced each word slowly, as if reflecting on each nuance and

sound--placing the man’s hand on her womb.
His gaze anxious, yet he turned to the next page.
I see no signs. It's not even possible.
Sisdel stops beside Mika near the monastery gates and stares out over the
walnuts in the fields. The handless one glances at the whiteness of Mika's
eyes, which have always intrigued him, as he now leads Mika through the
gates.
I know why its so difficult for him, Mika whispers, peering over his
shoulder....

As the man walked further past the old mooring road, he watched the
albino gulls swooping low over the river, Sisdel agrees, picking up a stick,
showing Mika to the rocky shore where they sometimes gather in the spring.
Mika lifts a fish from the water and holds it in the air by the tail.
And then the captain noticed there were still fish to be had in the
water, Sisdel goes on, nodding to Thomas as the angel hands him a
walnut....Why, the captain could see the fish all right. The silver and black
skin of their backs. The words floating out of the slit of their mouths. The
white bubbles, the gulls. All of the fish slowly slipping to the river's
surface as the man walked along its banks.
Yes, my eyes are fine, he uttered to himself. The could see his wife for
instance, his days of youth before the wars.....
The sky full of clouds. He was on a road again, and this encouraged him.
The breach of dark skies. The black forest ahead, the red-beaked crow
signalling. Shadows.

And one white cloud. Yes, there was one white cloud. Why it was even
Sunday. Though it had been Sunday the day before, he knew it was the same day
again. Another Sunday in another place.... It shouldn't be so hard to
understand, this blindness, the man thought, skirting around a barbed-wire
fence.
He emerged from a tunnel out of the forbidden zone and agilely climbed
36
the last of the fences aligning the forest beyond the cordoned off highway.
The other crows followed in his footsteps, taking smaller steps but
following in his trail. Many walking slowly while a few flew overhead.
Ezekiel smiles, grabbing a speckled trout from the water.
Why, as he walked along the old mooring road the man saw her once more as
she had been the night before. He saw her face in the image of the summoned
crow.
The white egret on the edge of the slough. The blue heron in the nearby
fields. Even Hezhen he saw in that precise moment as he began to cross the
river. The man knew that was his final sign.
Yes, I can see you, he whispered, trudging through the mud, past the high
grass of the swamp. The owl perched in the birch tree, sitting beside the
red-beaked crow. Her crow gesturing him onward so that he could witness what
she and her father had witnessed.
Hezhen reared her head as he crossed the river.
It's true what you say, and I have a right to repeat it.
The captain walked from the water's banks and faced her.
Why have you come here, Hezhen asked again.
This is where the story has been leading me, isn't it? He pulled the
folded page of her translation from his pocket and began to read:

They're travelling to the river. Indeed. An exodus. Because they have excused
themselves from the world's table. Exhausted by the moon, but not by the sun.
A slight hue of turquois edging along the horizon of God.
What of it? Hezhen demanded.
Did you write these words? In the name of Ezekiel?
The stone the builders rejected is the corner stone....Hezhen laughed.
And then she hissed.
Why have I come here?

The albino gulls swooping low over the river. The story pleased him. The
coming night. The blue heron nearby. The crows following in his footsteps,
leaving no traces.
That's enough! Hezhen hissed, showing her rage that another might arrive
at her feast.
Are there not fish to be had?
He edged closer, saw the tables of perch, salmon, bass, octopus, shark,
whale....the baskets of fish overflowing on the table.
Why should I call this a dream? the man asked her, remembering his dream
from the previous night.

37
 These are the fish you can see, but not eat.
She signaled him toward the fish.
What is your request?
The crows flocked around his shoulders. Is this what you want. Your eyes?
She pointed to the bowl of fish whose eyes were glowing in the darkness.
Their skin shriveled and taut. Demure. Blackened and burnt. One rose and
began this story as he stood before it:

It's an understandable blindness. One side of the face painted with

night, the other with morning. They become ghosts of the voices, but the
voices are more than ghosts. One shows itself as a god, another as a mere
word. One a woman, another as a man. Just as you've entered the pasts of
others who walk. You will see them all along the road to the sea that becomes
a lake, then a sea again-- a sea that becomes a woman and then a man and
then of course, a god. Since as it is written: ask and it will be given,
knock and the door will open. Fish the source of life, salt the source of
thirst. But the fish love salt and the water loves you.

Hezhen took a handful of the eyes and devoured them, afterwards taking
his arm and giving him a handful of eyes also.
These you can eat, she said.
See them for the first time and the last time! Hezhen pouted. Your own
eyes. What do you want to know!

Bravo! Ezekiel calls out, as the monks spot Peter walking across the
water in this hour of souls. Bravo! they all begin to call out, as Sisdel
gestures to the water, to the passing fish whose mouths have floated to the
surface humming like a choir.... Even Hezhen appears before them, impressed,
and she spits on Sisdel's face, giving him this rare, but deserved honor.

when the centuries meet

What is it you're writing? the man inquires, rather too patiently as he pulls
on her skirt and they stop before the stone bridge leading out of the city....

Stagebrush shells, the obliterated brush and rot walnuts wasting in the
fields....she says, turning to him.

These letters are to you, she then whispers, folding the edges of the paper
38
while pointing at the sun.

For a moment the man studies the curiosity of the onlookers faces.

She takes his tongue into her mouth.

This is what I've written--A way into the hour? And, there is a god in you
too, but which god....

There's your angel again, she laughs, turning the corner and walking further
down the road.

The man's almost startled, but not quite. He stares at her gray hands, the
angel standing on the sidewalk with burns covering his arms.

A blinded heap of bodies by the cliff.

Five monks walking to the sea.

Have you forgotten? she asks

Turning the corner in the road now, he remembers....

They sit, silent for an hour.

Under the hills a whiteness scored in light, one monk calls across the road,
waving a lantern, prepared to let the onlookers pass.

The west flank border patrols contained by this music too, these
surroundings....

The sun's eye on the soldiers' uniforms. I remember all of the armies that
have come here, she says, pointing at the boys' faces, their desire.

Though one day we'll see the large body of water called a sea in the pages.

The sky will come down to us.

Skin-back hills....
To do nothing takes courage? you will ask me, crossing the line of death
before we arrive.
39
He watches another woman by the tracks, selling carnations, singing--though
he doesn't recognize the song.

On this day.

The angels will carry on with their business. Because you understand,
treason can be arranged; love, hijacked.

The monk stands, lights the candle, touches the book, begins to walk across
the waters....

The man's finding it difficult.

This is the country I write you from, she scribbles in the Notebook today,
though it will be years before the man will read it.

He quietly strolls beside her now. He wants something. Perhaps to kiss her.

So that in this way, you will father his child! the monk calls out.

Our child....Ezekiel says, skipping ahead in the story. This one they have
come to believe in.

the days

When the earth turned to salt and the skies came down to meet them. An
almost white sun. Some flecks of dust lifting off the thinly disguised road
as the lovers walk pass. A man and woman walking toward the sea. Black
lizards and frogs flickering across the fields to the ritual noise of
gunfire. We first saw the two in this black and white image while travelling
on the trains, returning from the Crimea, less than a month ago. So little
time has gone by and yet it seems like a thing of imagination. All of these
men, soldiers really, walking in hoards before the woman and her lover,
toward the same beach and body of water. Her face sunburned as she glanced at
him, this younger man, who walked alongside her. The image less haunting than
the actual story, which is why, perhaps, we look for a language of desire
that outlives each desire in and of itself. As when speaking of ghosts and
absolution. The ghosts of our body, prayers in a territory that continues out

40
of its own peculiar changing.
His desire to kiss her, for instance, before crossing the water. Belief
forms a narrative, or the narrative forms a belief? The spare chance provided
is what we're after, an ongoing ritual that so often alludes daily speech. In
the walk toward the sea she was first. She carried the child inside her.
Though the young man knew he shouldn't kiss you. The impulse becomes an
invocation. She had told him--we heard her say--landscapes, not people
talking. One by one, the former soldiers began to lay their guns on the
beach, enter the water. A spirit thing made physical? She was smiling, fully
aged now--and yet, what a beauty, he whispered under his breath. Perhaps to
avoid the sentimental and not the sentiment.
As memory invents it. We had spent the day swimming in the Black Sea with
friends, drinking Cognac in the white sun and black water when one of the
boys told us he wanted to return here when he died. These were his waters
after all, as all of the stories, in the end, are about return. Never the
same place though. Each day becoming its own, yet blending, as do faces. The
lovers became invisible in the passage. When they walked into the water,
almost together, she reached for him once, said, "We've come here, almost
together." As if it formed the basis for everything that transpires.

the water

Trying to reconstruct the events would be impossible. So let memory have

them. She had told him as they walked across the white beach. All that had
been dead or thrown away appeared in their gaunt movement. Blue slime,
pestilence, mosquitoes, rain. The clarity of sun beating down. Nothing can
ever be reconstructed, you understand that, don't you? she went on, shivering
slightly as the waves began to touch her ankles, the hem of her skirt.
Rock islands in the further distance. A beach, albino gulls. It made one
want to swim. He glanced back at her, but only for a moment.
It's salt.
Yes, it's salty, she assured him.
And tomorrow?
Among the mosquitoes and earlier rain, the deltas of black soil, it had
been enough. Her image inhabited this place where the fear had diminished.
Why else had the soldiers put down their rifles.
The water warm between his legs, easy to walk in. A flock of pelicans
fishing along the southern cliffs.

41
 But who will tell our story, he asked.
Her glance leaving little to reckon. Can you see her? Her senses at ease,
shaped patterns on her wet arms and neck.
A canopy of fish, seaweed, floating algae. Or this sentence. This
background: examining the self and its sources; stepping in and out of the
lives. It's true.
Each history was told before us. She smiled, looping his elbow in her own
elbow as the tide rose. Who could refuse these singing mouths?
The notebooks had given them this vision.
When the earth turned to salt and the skies came down to meet the
soldiers walking toward the sea.
Why do you ask about tomorrow? she laughed, splashing the first of the
water into his face. It was warm in my underarms. The branch of a torn
eucalyptus slid past us like a wooden boat. They let it pass. He put his
mouth on hers.
She opened her mouth.
Someone heard the singing, but who? She took his hand, preparing for the
subsequent walk that awaited them on the other shore.
Where now then? he asked.
Floating into the source of these questions. An albatross sits on one of
the cliffs behind them. The narrow wings and large hooked beak. The sea
carried it here. The tide picks up the soldiers' rifles randomly strewn
across the beach. The tide picks them up. They carry out to sea. The
albatross sits.
She remembers this now:
Her sun-burned face. They are almost laughing. No more talking. Rock
islands not as far away. A white backed angel on the white backed rocks. The
sleeping weeds.
The fishing pelicans. The two faces turning in the sun. The waves allow
each day to become its own.
The fishwoman with fish coming out of her mouth, standing by the
shoreline.
So many open mouths.

42
Kim Kasey

Saffron

I lost my watch.
I’m pretty sure it’s in the middle
of the big saffron field behind your house.
Your mama always used saffron,
she said it made food taste fuller,
and I believe her.
I part the delicate stamens;
no, my watch is not there,
but I keep hoping soon I’ll hear
the dull clank of grey metal against hard earth.
A bee a butterfly goes on,
all running errands that don’t need a watch-
pollinating your saffron field of deep
red and ochre, made deeper when I view
it through the butterfly’s wings.
The pollen sticks to my sweater.
I look at the sun.
I don’t know what time it is.
Soon the field will be turned to plant peas.
Time for the butterflies and bees
to find a new home,
time for the saffron to be harvested,
time enough to share time in your back field,
time for me to go

K. Kasey 4-10-2000

43
Mez

agentfade = the beginning

FADE IN: One Voice

Agent architecture slipping through my fingers...finding hollow airless

spaces with crowds of real flesh...horror me not terror me
deep...leading to trace an unforgiving break...splitting across a silent
seam...placing a chemical dollhouse where silk whispers...inaudible to
those who listen only for the truth...you could catch and trace
yourself...all sounds of fear and threaten black night...not afraid of
the terror me not, horror me only...in shadows with bodies unlike my
own...distorted by surrounding elements in constant balance...always new
elements arising, entering, shifting, leaving, a certain kind of
desperation I know...a certain pain to outline while you're forgetting
how to feel...the unfortunate turn of time stopping the clock...warping
the day and glass within the windows...I begin with my own truths, the
poison of things that most people don't see...time's chemical evidence a
physiology...bringing about stages to bind the likes of time and
truth...liquid engage language... -Diane Ludin

************************************************************
At 10:22 AM 30/05/00 -0400, Diane Ludin wrote:
>Activate FADE [L]IN[E]: 1 Voice + 1

[Fade Line Actiff::Voice 1 + 1 Merge A[h!]lert]

>Ar.gent[z N ladiez] arches tilt 2wardz conjecture, zlipping t.here, bought 2 bloode bi mi fingers...

>Future rewindingz b.lank[n dank], followed bi hairlezz s.pacez [femme legz N pitz and lip-fade-linez] with
crowingz ov reality checked-flezh [ee bitz, genial genI[nfo]T[echne]alia...

>O[h!] the horror/ me [k]not[ted] in2 terrored genduh packagez that binde /me deep[inne purrception,
dulled depth percept:ON]...

>Lead crammingz traced in2 a unfertile organizm, bounde 2 break...

>Spit.ting[lez, a[h]gain] across ah silent poisoned fall.oh!.pian stream [ov wurdz], con.neck.t...

>Lacing a[h!] sette ov 12 mica dollz built from embreeyoh bitz, housed here in siloz ov keening
whis.purrz...

>Instinct.ewe.all, [wo]man.diblez function 4 thoze who list N jolt within gened truths...

>Ewe could catch yr death, chilled and tracinge you.r cloned zelf...

>All boundaries Xcrossed, ovian fear treatz black knightz n silvered horzez...

>Knottz fraid, terraws meant not horror 4 me onlee...

>In shifting planez of lighte, windoze bloodied with thoze like mi own[whore.ship]...
44
>Tortured bi zooz that round up L-ee.ments of DNA shardian constantz, balance 4gotten...

>All wayz leadinge to the new Roame, New El[l]e[phantine]gant Sta[tic]mens risinge, entering, shape-
shiftinge...

>Pain 2 define, [fade]out.line while you're 4getting feelingz of that contracting meme.ori...

>Fortunez turn on the heade[ache] ov a pinned cloned clock...

>Wizhing, harping the day away with a[h!] glazzy wind harborin scifi pagez

>Ginned with-N mi pistonned thingz, mostlee people N animuz, bio.logic.caul seepage...

>2 my minez eye, a chemist's dense drugged prescriptz read like proze, reversed phylogenic scale...

>Stage Actiffate FADE bindinge my likes ov too much[o] time...

>like N-gagez l[ike]angu[ish]age[z]...

-Di[mary-]an[n]e Ludin

********************************************************
>Activate Fade Line: One Voice plus one voice

[Fade Line Active::Voice One and one Merge Alert]

>Argent arches tilt towards conjecture, slipping here and there, bought
to blood by my fingers...

>Future rewindings blank, followed by hairless spacez [femme legs

and pits and lip-fade-linez] with crowings of reality checked-flesh [bits,
genial genitalia trapped in Info Techne]...

>Oh the horror /me knotted into terrored gender packages that bind
/me deep [in perception, dulled depth perception On]...

>Lead crammingz traced into an unfertile organism, bound 2 break...

>Spitting across a silent poisoned fallopian stream [o words], connect...

>Lacing a set of 12 mica dolls built from embryo bits, housed here in silos ov keening whispers...

>Instinctual, woman-&-mandiblez function for those who list and jolt within
gened truths...

>you could catch your death, chilled and tracing your cloned self...

>All boundaries crossed, ovian fear treats black knights and silvered horses...

>Knotts frayed, terrors meant not horror for me only...

>In shifting planes of light, windows bloodied with those like my

own [and ownership]...

>Tortured by zoos that round up elements of DNA shardian constants,

balance forgotten...

>All ways leading to the new Roame, New Elegant Static Stamens
rising, entering, shape-shifting...
45
>Pain to define, outline [and fade] while you're fogetting feelings of that
contracting memory...

>Fortunes turn on the head of a pinned cloned clock...

>Wishing, harping the day away with a glassy wind harboring sci-fi pages

>Ginned within my pistonned things, mostly people and animal, biological seepage...

>To my mines eye, a chemist's dense drugged prescripts read like prose,
reversed phylogenic scale...

>Stage Activate Fade binding my likes of too much[o] time...

>Like engagez Like/anguish/language...

[Original version :Diane Ludin]

[mezangelled vurssion]
{Translated version: Mary-anne Breeze]

46
dif.fur.rent spacez

At 08:05 AM 10/03/00 +1000, you wrote:

>Is your experience of cyber space changing the way you relate to and
conceptualise material space?

a[h!] chinese box with-n a[h] codec box with-iN a[h!] kodex box....
i sit @ mi mezchine and poke n textprod the screen, while birds sing and
codez khime along...

mi source Kode getz re-wrightten, i sleep n eat and source N type and
ab.sorb[ic - orange jooze N toast meatz my email n-deavourin; garlic prawns
and wine reside with talk n torque; voicemail N mezzagez N my pardner's
smooth body tendrill-touch[e] the o.ther[e].....]

mi wurdz blend, my text taps dance, my blood re.acts n hearz the sounds of
the spaces real and flesh m-patient...

mi breath steamz, my fingerz itch n glide, my tronics melt and cum inside
my shell....

mi other dopplez, my gangerz stretch, mi dopplegangs N gongz....

[n-sert: a seamlezz split; a[h] cord that plugz in2 my spine; a gap that
echos life n /nick life]

[n-sert: a[h] playful pen; a clacking board n gigglez; a hair flik n sore
finger paddz]

[n-sert: ah dog panting; a recording ov a dog panting; a animation of the

sound of a dog panting]

codic boxez meetin monitor boxez meetin cortex [purr.ception]

boxez....fingertipping gamez N slow smooth arching sonicz....

[end]

47
:::::::LOGGIN ON2 NET.WURK:::::::::::::

[the meld ov wurd & m-mage, teXt & diz[zy].course, the hypahjumping B-tweenmedi[amatic]umz]

[[[mus[lin]e.ums......architect-tockonic archit.ravez, a place of new deceit N old mus[t]k [seez N

[wanna]bees]...

i vizi.ON a place...white wallz re:placed by fluiditee, a notion of thecompac wr.ought in pulse n nuance....

[my eyez hurt, my head real[itee]z az i con[ned]tem.plate [gold & ionz,science B-cumz and B-gatz theze
arch.hives [N bites and rashed outfleshtronics, architravic]...

a bird, singin in the daze heat, cann.knot B cap.toured bi brick walls, ob[pro]jeckt.ee.fied N made static,
sew Y shood The Net.Wurk[ed]?]]]

[the ideer of space as free fall, free float, a nuanced absolute that flitz and fallz pre.cise.lee in2 [z]p.l.ace
when kneeded, and [sir thomas] moore m-portantlee, want.ed....]

[[[mez draws herself in2 a wurdskin for the disc[ourse]ussion…

/me[z] revelz in her skin and textual touch…

/me[z] reaches a staticwurd outwards, spiraling…

/me[z] watches her wurd releazed, bounch forth from mouth to lover'z mouth…

/me[z] watches the lectrolight play, sur.face [N body] tensions, cave.ities

/me[z] spivaks, rolls, twists and genderloopz..n loopz..and loveloopz...

/me[z] feelz her wurdskin shimmah, gossmer textthreads spinning, spivaking in2 dust...

/me[z] teztflippes and frizzonflies…

/me[z] kneelz b4 the Fleshtronic and hands them a textbannah, re.plete with golden wurds of
mezangellednezz and new blank wurd spacez....

/me[z] getzz n m-mage of her.s[h]elf fragmented, nodic in thread based seg.ments, hair N eyes and nose
mixed in2 a cybercubist ren.durr.ing...

/me[z] wants the Fleshtronic 2 play azz well as listen, takes her by her textsenze and tickelles her
wurdfiltahz...

/me[z] hugs her Fleshtronic and produces stringz of silver polysemics, running them thru her wordfingers
and passing them ah!long...

/me[z] handz the Fleshtronic a neuromancer gunn and shotz them full of gibsonite bitz

/me[z] givez your Fleshtronic a vezzel, firez it up within her multiVerse then whistlezz 2 it to go 2 your
packettepatch...

/me[z] grabs your Flestronic'z klappz and holds em tight, treasurin...

/me[z] brethez in her Fleshtronic's klappz 2, melding and shaping and moldin...

/me[z] starts wrapping it up, grabbin the wirds, the snippettes azz they tri 2 esc-ape into the
tronictextualnezz....

48
/me[z] remindz all Fleshtronics ov their wurdsmithian n-tention and blows kiltakizzes

/me[z] floats in2 a smooth shinee ball of wurdz, spinning slowlee then frant.tick-tocklee, then bam!
Gone.]]]

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::DISCONNECKT:::::

49
The Na[to]ture Ov The data]h![bleede

_data]h![bleedein::eLectro.duct.ion_
.
1ce up]down[on]under[ a]h![time, /me wroTe a lettah 2 the starrs. thiz
lettah contained all the available data]h![ on TTT ]Textual Time Travel[.
TTT iz a produce of that L-lusive new mind.set[i], the
]time[m]achined[ezangelled way of thinking ]out.n.proude.loude[, produc]e N
woole N earthe[ing, ]wo[man.i]n[festing.
.
/me had to stoppe 4 a sec ]juzt a sec![.
.
[clue n-sert: sum ov the square brackettez setz r backward]inge off
e-vil]e[]. phonetic-tocks r m]de[]ployed[. spaces r created. re.aline yr
construcktz. fl.ow]![ N sparke N gleane.]
.
[meaning code: this dialogue is riddled, troubled; no multilogues exist
here to assist it, make it a true net.wurk log or decipherable text. try
and muddle on, anyway. N means "and", or "in". "r" means "and" or "are",
etc. reading out-loud may help validate the phonetic allusions. posthoc
reasoning will not help comprehension. read that first paragraphic again.]
.
/me waitz, wantin the nodez 2 catch on]up[, comprehendin nuthin,
regurgitatin everythang ]pleze[.
.
.
.
.
_data]h![bleedein::/me thodologee]![_
.
/me had thorts uncoded bi the sanc]t[itee ov the net.wurk. the san.c]t[itee
was pro]fession.all[founde, the data]h![ traffic lozt. the rhyth/me
brok]e[en. howe 2 convince the nodez of their egg.]re[sistance?
.
[clue n-sert: u, deer co]axial[author]N read.her[, r the nodepointte. the
point in the fluid]ance[. the pointe that flowez b-tween]ing[, b-hinde,
b-4....comprehension cr]ucial[itical.]
.
[meaning code: as the web grows more neural-like, more
animated/integrated/dense, the less interactive it is able to become; a
node/viewer is forced to respond with proscribed reactions; flickers of the
swarmic genuine embed within the directional, the unilateral. where is the
lateral [en]courage? stigmata reactions should assist where appropriate.
data]h![bleede comes from this staccato, moving through the neural in
waves, swarming into active channels, critically hitting inactive
potentials. it is small, a miniscule infoalert. incremental. translating
easily when decoded. a node datadigest pill. repeated exposure increases
incidental learning, facilitating absorption. read the posts again, once
from this list, twice from another. it won't hurt.]
.
.
.
_data]h![bleedein::Re]duce[]in[sultz]2 injuree[_
.
/me flippes, again. rejo]y[ic]e[ing in the e]m[b]ed[b. /me swarmz actionz
as time, data]h![ con.dens]e[ing around the pulse]8[ pointte.
converge/diverge,constricte/x-pand, the data]h![ moves, a-li]fe[ve.
50
.
[cluelezz:the nodez muzt de:side]within/out[]
.
[meaning code: a freeforming idea that can get stuck, this lateral sliding
into play. are you starting to assign your phrases to square brackets? go
on, read it again. it's all there, isn't it? just as you pepper your
thoughts and verbal sentence strings with tangents, memories, the future,
so the data]h![ bleeds into itself, breaking down the linear, the expected
- you start to switch to valvular conceptions of data absorption. time
fractions are meaningless. so are resolute traditional meaning cues.]
.
.
_data]h![bleedein::disc.us]her[sion_
.
/me constructs a]h![ kode, made fromme a chat-construckted n-turrface, the
maine character is tit]z N arse, purrhapz, or sacs and shardz[led "/me".
"/me" onlee x-ists when on-line, iz covered in sponsorshippe logoz that r
textlasered on/off with a]h![ neuralnet gunn. action linez de.term.ine the
narrator.tiff.
.
[clue n-sert: lick yrself a ball of organobiotic glue, drenched with
human]e[ genome sequencez and mechanised DNA ten.drillz. inject
sponsorshippe pixels through a binary need]& want[le. molde ah pet virus,
designed 2 x-pell annoying prototypologeez and shifting character/floating
nuances. will you b happy then?].
.
[meaning code: if narrative is essential to comprehension, then TTT is not
for you. turn reading "off" and filter "on". if, on the other key, you
enjoy dream sequences/ sequentials, reverse the last.]
.

Re[ap]: Th[es]is Mes.sage was[h my space with text

>Th[es]is Mes.sage was[h my space with text, drench my wonne-tonne-wurdz in

silken static and blend yr boundariez] unde[r yr thumb, yr noze yr
ovariez]liver[N kidneyz N prostrate[tingz]z]able due to the follow[inge the
stuporic superhighwaze]ing reas.on[N off, flik off N on]:
><
>A[h!my stomach iz full, my life n-shurted here] mess.[i feel mi]age was
[k]no[t]t de.livered[thru the trial, the nexus, the liphe N thymez of
n-other, a surrogate, a dopple.gang-gang.er, streaminge sound N wavz]
be.cause[ov it all, i feel, stretch marked and brand-ed] I[nfo]T[echne]
would create a mail[e] l.oop[s, i mean, ov course, female as well].
><
>T.[s]he a.ddress[inge inna rosebuddish-pink 1, or raveing-red, circuz
colourz refr.act-ted N the flowe[ur[l]]] be.low[the gender linez n
communication blurbz] do not be.[hivez N wartz N all]long to an.y[-talk N
IRC] ac[k!].counts on this machine,so[-so, this drink, this cravin, this
D-sire & [dental]damnation]] an at.tempt[inge izzn't it? we all live here,
B-neath N on[line-a]top ov] w.as[izz] mad.[with luzt and truzt N nuthin ov
the sort]e to for.ward[ing ovv the Devil, spirits re.spl[e]en.dent[ata]]
the mess[N dirt, crave again that simpelle x-istence, failin]age to the
des[ertin, breakage, splinter]ti.nation[of webbishwhorez] h.[l]ost.
How.ever[n eva ah[wo]men, again], the destin[ee ahweightz, is clogginge
mixturez of texttinct and tractz].ation ho.st[op! 2 much!] is
T.HIS[z.......hizzzz] ma[mez]chine, but under
>a different name.
>
>Here are a few possible solutions for clearing up this problem:
51
>
> - return the mail since the address was invalid
>
> - add an account or alias for the recipient and
> resubmit the message
>
>If this machine should be handling all [femme]mail for the destination
>host, it should be added to the list of Local-Mail-D.[w]om[b].ains in
>the "Sy.stem[n petal, bloom n bruise] Co[dependent].n.figuration."
>
> Destin[y here 2, stop-N-stare]ation ho[ho-heh]st: mail.[net].wurk.[u
r in a rightte]state.org.uk
>
>The following recipients did not receive this message:
>
>
>
>Please reply to Post[wo]ma[n]ster@th[es]is.message.was[h my wurds with
tractz].org
>if you feel this message to be in [t]error.
><

52
tingelle tranzlationz

thort i'd start with the m-peto.us[aNd eye N ewe, 2, ahgain] ov doodling,
ro[wo]manticizm, gra[ph 2wards, n-side, with-in]fitti.....
2 doodle is 2 paint a thousand pixellez in2 dust, remove the conscious N
splurge, push the blank buttone N wait, zelf-auto[no][sodo]mize, rewinde 2
the birthin pointte, jump the logic queue and nitrouslee-ox.[h]ide blast
out.s[ch]ide the ot.her[N hymn n them].....
romanti.sizing[up n down sizing, full-blown ah!lert in2 a scape of mind &
thyme] izz a ghost itzelf, bringin e-motional.l loadz the size of planettez
N tears the shape ov physic[alli n the etheral]s....
graphit[e]ti..the wurds tumbelle N spilt on contackt, removing all hope of
the joinne , the onenezz 1ce there but absence now concretez the act and it
izz gone, 4 good?

<>

thought i'd start with the impetousness of doodling, romanticism, graffiti.....

to doodle is to paint a thousand pixels into dust, remove the conscious and splurge, push the blank button
and wait, self-automise, rewind to the
birthing point, jump the logic queue and nitrously-oxide blast outside the other.....
romanticising is a ghost itself, bringing emotional loads the size of planets and tears the shape of physics
[and the etherals]....
graffiti...the words tumble and split on contact, removing all hope of the join, the oneness once there but
absence now concretes the act and it is
gone, for good?

***************************************************

thor[ugh]t eye'd start wiff the m-peto.us[elezznezz] ov droolin,

ro[wo]manticizm, gra[ph 2wards, n-side, with-in]fitti.....
2 droole is 2 paint a thousand glandularz in2 duzt, remove the conscious N
spit, pu.she the numbe buttone N wait, zelf-salivate, rewurk 2 the breathin
pointte, juice the l[og]ickin queue N hide the blast out.s[ch]ide the
mouthe.....
ro[a]m.ovein izz a gate itzelf, bringin akward motional loadz the shappe ov
the etheral....
graphick...the wan.tonnes tumbelle N spilt on creazing, replayin the
joinne, the absence now stable, the act and it izz gooode, izz it [k]not[t]?

<>

thought i'd start with the impetuousness of drooling, romanticism, graffiti.....

to drool is 2 paint a thousand glandulars into dust, remove the conscious and spit, push the numb button
and wait, self-salivate, rework to the breathing point, juice the licking queue and hide the blast outside the
mouth.....
removing is a gate itself, bringing awkward motional loads into the shape of the etheral....

graphic...the wantons tumble and are spilt on creasing, replaying the join, the absence now stable, the act
and it is good, is it not?

***************************
2 dreade is 2 pulze within a nuance, ah thousand pixelle-pintz of kode,
rewurked and grounde in2 the conscious. we all push back N wait,
grief-scarred ore zelf-auto[no][sodo]mized, rewindin 2 the birthin pointte
N jumpin the logic queue...

53
manic up n down sizing, full-blown ah!lerting in2 a scraping izz a ghost
itzelf, bringin e-motional.l loadz the size of pretend tears...
all wurds tumbelle N spilt on contackt, renewin all hope of the joinne but
crackin the onenezz, absence now creakz the act and it izz gone, 4 good?

<>

to dread is to pulse within a nuance, a thousand pixel-pints of code, reworked and ground into the
conscious. we all push back and wait, grief-scarred or self-automised, rewinding to the birthing point and
jumping the logic queue...
manic up and down sizing, full-blown alerting into a scraping is a ghost itself, bringin emotional loads the
size of pretend tears...
all words tumble and are spilt on contact, renewing all hope of the join but cracking the oneness, absence
now creaks the act and it is gone, for good?

***************************

2 draw iz 2 pounde ah nanosand pixelle in2 kode, rewounde and gritty. we

all painte ore mark, scar the medium 2 the concept pointte...
moulte up n down, full-blown shed[yr skinne]ding[!] that windez in2 a
scraping e-motional.l load the size of poult[ry]ice tears...
all feathurz twizt N split on contackt.

<>

to draw is to pound a nanosand pixel into code, rewound and gritty. we all paint or mark, scar the medium
to the concept point...
moult up and down, full-blown shedding that winds into a scraping emotional load the size of poultice
tears...
all feathers twist and split on contact.

***************************

[thizz is the tumble of graffiti, the smear of thort.flit and markologiez

bound, the colour of the hip N the rhythm ov the hop.....a unit reversed N
atom broke, rejoined @ the lip ov sense N the t[aste]ongue ov sound without
the music tag N lab[ia]elle]
[my wurds r the misheard, songz played N lyrics chewed in2 the wrong,
non-lit[t]er[s ov young 1s]al...cut up wurds from pulp mags N muze, paste
em in2 a youthful clutch of terms N breaks...grab ah crayon N scrawl,
breaking the nub N pointte N gettin it all]

<>

[this is the tumble of graffiti, the smear of thoughts that flit and markologies bound, the colour of the hip
and the rhythm of the hop.....a unit reversed and atoms broken, rejoined at the lip of sense and the
tongue of sound without the music tag and label]
[my words are the misheard, songs played and lyrics chewed into the wrong, non-literal...cut up words
from pulp mags and muze, paste them into a youthful clutch of terms and breaks...grab a crayon and
scrawl, breaking the nub and point and getting it all]

54
Alan Sondheim

The Vapid

Ju16lu% date Ju17lu% Sat Apr 15 17:23:29 EDT 2000 _ cit. ::./) have been
planktonic follies, caught alive, drowned in pure air (lit. and so our
lives passed uneventfully, full of love and happiness). (lit. op. thus did
skeins contribute to the cascading waters enmeshing of what might Sat Apr
15 17:24:34 EDT 2000 How did it come to this, words cascaded, in disarray,
memory of older orders lost and drowned with them, words poised in slow
and circling waves between surface and bottom, sludged and slurried lay-
ers, all in the space of a night, dull morning, gloomy afternoon? Time
hurries without us, works its slow unravelings; letters lose their violent
hold on meaning. Remember that, meaning is always caught alive or not at
all, the monstrosity of noise, shrill echoes blanking out the remnants of
the world around us.

Just as I write these words, they begin their incessant decay; already I
picture transpositions, occlusions, vapors, the vapid...

Learning you

don't be afraid of your computer. don't be afraid to try everything. be

careful not to delete files you don't recognize. be careful not to open
attachments sent from people you don't know. recognize your children
understand the computer better than you do. realize they will see what-
ever they want to see. understand there are ways around any software you
might install. know that you will not harm your machine. understand that
you should develop a comprehensive knowledge of your computer. don't end
your exploration without looking at every item in your program menus. be
careful to shutdown your computer correctly. know that it is adults who
are fearful of what children might find. know that adults are afraid of
bodies and violence. understand the computer is a gateway to your world
and to the world of your children. don't be afraid of your children. be
careful to read everything you can about your computer. understand your
children learn the computer as a natural language. be aware that learning
any language will be more difficult for you and other adults. learn from
your children. know your computer.

55
geoffrey gatza automation corp

seeking a present

contemplating a peach on a summers afternoon sitting

in the rain watching main st. angle its slow rush home

its gong chimes

So that’s work
glimmer heartbeats
homewards
as it is now

her presence should have stopped working here a long time ago
unfolding before eyes as drum beats, a slide of strings come crashing into walls

american doors
door to door salesmen

everywhere;
their fate sways in the balance
of widespread presence of the internet

it’s a poem a poem a poem

no labor issues here

just a poet on poesy
watching kind folks
slide home this
isn’t a thing
its poesy
it pays nothing yet I loved it more than real love

her presence should have stopped working in my work

but a rut forms from a stuck car, spinning itself further into the earth

56
100 degrees in Phoenix
a catharsis

As with all shipwrecks

Discovery precludes invention

it needs to burn, 100 degrees in Phoenix

rediscovers new rust on old feathers
flies once more
to merge

feelings of steering the ghost ship

a seaman asleep at the helm
shadowy graves
wood rot planks
to die but remain
still on watch
ready museum piece
I am this here On sudden brinks
brinking on edges of all things round
Zombie: to be called back to life after death has occurred

under kelp beds rocking

seas
comfort sways tidal
sleeping wabes or clashings
ebbing force moon on moon

salt loaded sprays

new rust on old feathers

invention secludes discovery

57
the burning

why because its not what your eyes expect it to say?

Today more and more scholars believe it was trade and not a sword and shield that consecrated a
scaffold for the modern civilization … recall Nestor the sabled monk who transcribed the honor, peace
and love of the Viking chieftain’s slain body, dressed in arms, set ablaze in his war craft with his favorite
slave girl, acting as a living guide through the burning; the burial ritual suffocates the living while
preserving the corpse until all fuel becomes fire and the fire becomes smoke and heat reabsorbed in the
surrounding environment so

It would seem appropriate to set doughnuts before cookies

store bought sweets don’t have to bake.

the night smells of darkening

broken by desire to have baked cookies

I leave the television channel set for the cat

she needs to have some sounds to let her know the world is still revolving

fifteen minutes
to midnight
I go out
we; I
need butter

a home has butter

but
I a home am not

and that I think this is going out

I should get out more Nick sez
Buy butter that’s going out

traded a dollar for store brand hydrogenated butter sticks ®

four sticks same as last time
89 cents
20 more than last week
this makes me mad

she looked at me then the wall clock as the minute hand slapped the hour hand
closed

her face twisted

compulsive midnight butter buyers

I was in line
could have lied, the wife needs it …

rang me up
urge sated
58
 at this hour
she’s seen me before
looking on lone

the shopping habits of the individual is of the utmost importance in understanding how he behaves as a
creature in natural habitat,

how self is sustained,

how desires are swayed

the need for wealth, the usefulness of it, the want for more of it,
how resources are allocated to better serve the needs of the subject

and recipient of wealth transfer goods

if value is established and its benefits outweigh its costs

eating the joy of life

before it spoils

so when I arrived home I cracked

eggs creamed sugar & butter sticks ®

doubled the recipe halfway through

packed part molasses for brown sugar
thought twice on doubling baking soda

the cookies of my childhood

in blue ink
mom’s hand
on a 3x5 card
brown logo painting
same thing on the
gold medal flour

a bond a dime a dozen

? confused
turned out the lights
struck a candle
went to bed

nothing fulfilled but time beaten passages folded with walnuts

When sugar burns under controlled conditions it becomes caramel

a pleasing creamy brown blended within stripes; in other conditions
will reduce to carbon

tossed the notions of Nestor

a shield a sword
under plaid covers becoming fuel

59
William James Austin

after-word-s

a poetry which copulates beneath the pavement. so how the reader

reads is a kind of surface experience, initially--like taking a walk around
the city and feeling the underground connections--electric shocks to
the body--subways who rattle their sunken cages--
the storm underfoot

block by block to where the street vibrates, tenses against low born
engines. the reader turns a corner, drops through a hole in the ground.
there’s my secret alphabet--a d e f trains--language sturdy as concrete
but riddled with trapdoors

washington square park. sudden teary chimes--

RE-BELL-I-ON
autumn’s usual pile of clichés. when I walk my shoes
scatter
the
dead

do you think your tiny feet will trample me?

poets who prance like fashion models--my proof is that
the gangbangers pay no attention to you

as your literature is a frozen popsicle, I desire feeling dangerously spilled,

dirty as a runny rear end

my poems may be shit--but fabulous shit!--their stink is

unmatched.
to discover me
you will need a condom plus a long attention span for
deep penetration

otherwise I am alone if your boutique aesthetics,

your runway chic, your fashion plate poems
do not speak to me

I’m down with obscurity

fame is a woman
without a vagina

personal ad: poet seeks mature readers--enjoys subways,

alleyways--will crouch all night to jack you

if you scream I’m happy

this method, always

60
 beethoven’s fist

then the fanfaronade

sounding the rooftops,
then the wailing pitch and nosedive,
a fireball on the rain wasted streets--
there like a voice
snarled
in the mind’s weather

a moist gumdrop
sits in my mouth. no bite.
or so it seems
whenever an old century, a young century,
both toothless,
chew down

I know I’m all wet,

ears waterlogged,
deaf as a desktop post.
nothing but this boatload of words
and a crafty backstroke
to float us
over
the wave

well, even so.

what we have here is tenement meltdown.

from every window a geyser

of fire, screaming jumpers
peeled from their blistered skin,
like bubble fish
the net can’t catch

scales of words stripped to the blood root,

dissolved in fire tides

was a passenger jet

the sky dropped,
a hellbent missile
bombing the new millennium.
one hundred dead
on the ground.
ash peppered steel
and the rain would not quit

so who to inscribe chaos,

steer its timbre
to where intellect
anchors nonsense,
emotions bottom feed?
will a picture do the job?
a photo and a line of newsprint?
no chance.
61
it’s like so totally graphic
anyway,
a sound poem from the galaxy’s maw, dead real
like really good art
when it’s not,
when it’s not just art,
when it rains down fire,
when it floods our few days

what purpose to build a ship? to carry a people

safely toward their bearings?
nobody’s safe.
it’s always a crash landing

I count two new gumdrop flavors.

fashionable art

no one who dares the power dive,

who pounds an iron fist

no ludvig van
under
american skies--
just computer pilots,
clouds of spray paint,
virtual rain,
digital cats and dogs

shooting a few

some poets are magicians,

existing as they do in the interstices
any confrontation seems reckless
though saying this to someone
acts as a quaint stand-in,
something familiar on our side
of the chicken wire

but most poets are farmers.

you’ve been picking at your scalp all evening.
what’s under your fingernail, that’s poetry?
I imagine if you see it that way.
I’d rather roam like a hunter
who expects his weapon to backfire,
the night made brilliant by accident.
any craftsman can build a barn.
what matters is
how I was blinded out there

62
 sartor resartus,
or the crossdresser’s lament
hang on while I torch your love letters.
these are not poems--
I don’t know what they are

when I slipped your lacy frock

over my body, and tangoed for the moon--
that was fun!
I was you

but you were never me.

little love words--like chaste tennis shoes--not hot.
if I
violate
your pussy narrative
and come out smokin’

YEEEOOOOOWWWW

it’s what we feel

when we feel obscene

the crack-up of language

real dirty work

this won’t last long.

however
the quickening,
in the
between
of a
split second
words re-ravel us,
time bound

now there’s a kinky poem, the way a woman’s wardrobe frees me--
this corset, these sheer nylons clamped to your garter belt

carlyle wrote how clothes make the man.

the underneath? moon naked

I’d love to wear you out

can you handle my poppy cock

I’ll be texting you

63
 bondage

who be us
if not the body
scabbed
by words--
syntax
the blood’s
connective tissue

this dumb chattering self

just salt into wounds

since when?
since the accident,
shattered axle
and gas tank thunder, fire
sucking air--
since trapped in his
event horizon,
core
meltdown,
heart brilliant
as it burned
leaving half-lives

since my father died

I like my women pierced,

my men tattooed

a woman I touched lived only to penetrate herself--

tongue pierced,
eyelids pierced,
ears pinned back,
clitoris pierced.
can you talk like that
can you see like that
can you hear like that
can you love like that

compelled to cut herself.

I’m searching
for my energy, she said, but
maybe I missed it, maybe
it leaked out

red cigarette eyes

blinded on her breasts,
yellow skin mapped by needle tracks,
face mask of vacant sockets--
dangerous potholes,
inevitable crack-up,
body toe-tagged, a blue scar
64
on white sheets

so my father, tough son of a bitch, WWII veteran,

carved my mother’s name on his chest
after normandy. it survived the war,
the schrapnel cuts. it squirmed
when he took off his shirt
and moved

80 years young, lost on the freeway, he collided with god

most of him scorched into nonsense

but the word remained,

story of his life written on the body, in blood--
tangled in his chest hairs

this is how the body talks.

without flesh on the line
there can be no intercourse

no real heat

no kick-ass
poetry

sex tour

america--
always the same grind.
eden a bust,
raw genesis
come and gone

I’m set to travel

but hucksters whore the air waves.
it’s buy me this, buy me that

where to now,
now that we’ve screwed the country?
running off at the mouth
to a foreign woman,
maybe venice.
in winter her civil canals
spill over, slap back the labyrinth
of street names, the language that wants
to straighten things out

who was it who said we can drive the boat but not the ocean

65
in summer
the rialto a harbor
clogged with bodies.
I pass a fat bobbing one
sweating canal stink,
waterlogged her flashy skirt of ships

I pass another who drags bottom

under the grip/weight of purchase,
drifts back
into the labyrinth,
moored to his wife

or else to paris
to knock tourist boots, walking the concrete banks of the seine

dry

wine and bread, the blood red words of rimbaud--

can these resurrect
a poet

or have we so sickened
the voice?
its gut soundings
wrenched from the world text

that no mangod will walk here

so much
romantic
debris
floating by(e)[I]

and river poems, I mean, bore the shit out of me

anyway, why bitch?

everywhere it’s the same rundown.

I just want some, know what I’m sayin’?

some bubbly ass on the boulevard,
that pellmell wiggle
to get my logos up

I’m ready to talk money

but the zealots say she was created for us,

just like that,
in a garden--
free

66
 Remembering Jandl

Ernst Jandl
1925-2000

ERNST JANDL was born in Vienna in 1925. He is known as a master of experimental poetry for his
acoustic and visual performance pieces. His works include Laut und Luise and Spechblasen (1966), die
bearbeitung der mütze (1978), idyllen (1989), and stanzen (1992).

B
e safe on your journey we will
m
i
s s
u

67
The Ernst Jandl Home Page

http://www.jandlsernst.de/

Books in English
1. Dingfest/Thingsure
ISBN: 1901233111 - Paperback - List Price: $15.95
Publisher: Dufour Editions, Incorporated - Published Date: 04/01/1998
Author: Michael Hamburger
Author: Ernst Jandl

2. Reft & Light

ISBN: 188622434X - Paperback - List Price: $10.00
Publisher: Burning Deck - Published Date: 09/01/2000
Edited by: Rosmarie Waldrop
Translated by: John Yau
Translated by: Anselm Hollo
Translated by: Charles Bernstein
Translated by: Norma Cole
Translated by: Cole Swensen
Translated by: Benjamin Friedlander
Translated by: Lee A. Brown
Author: Ernst Jandl

3. Next, Please!
ISBN: 0399237585 - Hardcover
Publisher: Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers - Published Date: 07/01/2002
Illustrated by: Norman Junge
Author: Ernst Jandl

68
Biography & Criticism

http://www.kubiss.de/kultur/info/erlangen/galerie/2001/jandl.htm

Ernst Jandl Tribute pages

http://www.sfd.at/jandl/index1.html

http://www.holarchy.com/zaptext-store/jandl/

http://www.literaturhaus.at/jandl/

Large List of Jandl links (German)

http://www.ub.fu-berlin.de/internetquellen/fachinformation/germanistik/autoren/multi_ijk/jandl.html

Jandl MP3 at UBU Web

http://www.ubu.com/feature/sound/feature_jandl.html

69
70
COMMENT KOMMENTAR

that never daß niemals

would he write er schreiben werde
his autobiography seine autobiographie

because his life daß ihm sein leben

seemed to him viel zu sehr
just so much filth als dreck erscheine

that only a few daß auch nur wenige

points, bloody ones punkte, blutige
he still remembers er noch erinnere

but that he would daß aber niemals

never hesitate er zögern werde
to reach into the filth in den dreck zu fassen

to pull out um herauszuziehen

what perhaps was vielleicht
could serve as stuff einen stoff abgäbe

for poetry für poesie

his disgusting seinen widerlichen
purpose in life lebenszweck

By Ernst Jandl
Translated by Margitt Lehbert

71
Jandlfort
Robert Creeley

American poetry has all too small an instance of

what a poet as Ernst Jandl finally was -- or what he
meant to the company he lived with. We have “New
York Poets,” “Beat Poets,” and those local, we think, to
other particular cities and times. Like hiphop’s, such a
ground gets quickly abstracted, the local transforms to
general, and whatever one began with and wherever
one found it, all blurs in the great abstraction we know
as “there.” Here we come but there they are. But it
wasn’t always like that.
Somewhere in all the many electronic pages one
comes upon, looking for “Ernst Jandl,” there is one that
speaks of his pragmatic take on words, his sense of
them as physical, substantively present, things one can
shape as objects. Just so his dear person – with its
endearing substance, foursquare, solid, broad, altogether evident in being there, just so, standing or
sitting. I remember eating with him in Vienna, the particularity with which he chose food and ate it, the
delight he felt in knowing its pleasures. It had nothing to do with the usual gourmet’s sense of
authority. Rather, it was communal, a company of local determinations, shared wonders and habits.
His gentle friend and brilliant fellow poet, Friederike Mayröcker, was there too, I recall, and whatever
Vienna was otherwise – I had read in a bank with the German text recited by a classic actor – here it
came home.
In fact, relation with Ernst Jandl goes far back of that genial evening to 1965 when Insel Verlag in
Frankfurt first published his translation of my only novel, The Island, just two years after its American
publication by Scribners. Insel was then the old and classic German publisher and I was included,
thanks to the interest of the young editor and translator, Klaus Reichert, who now heads what one here
would call the Renaissance Studies Program at the Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt. A year before I
had met Klaus at the Frankfurt Book Fair, staying with him for a day or two after the fair had ended.
H.C. Artmann, one of Ernst Jandl’s peers in the Vienna Group, had come with his son to see Klaus, and
had asked me to read a poem in the construct of Viennese dialect he had made with literalizing patterns
of sounds determined by alphabetic blocks and rhythms. All but me seemed to hear the Viennese aptly
as I stuttered on.
Ernst Jandl taught for a bleakly long time in a boy’s school, where he was the English teacher. I
have no sense of what that life was like except that he did not much like it. Hard to think of him as a
school master, however kind he probably was. Yet his playfulness would have been suspect, one

72
 thinks, his impulse to add on, layer the word with echoed other meanings, hear much too much for
discreet validation and transfer. Somewhere now in mind lurks the image of a distraught Japanese
tourist in a movie, trying to get the attention of the indifferent others, all American, shouting, “RYAN,
RYAN!” What is he trying to say, they wonder, until the veritable lion suddenly appears among them.
There is a wonderful affection and clarity to be found in a book just published these few months after
Ernst Jandl’s sad death in June. It’s by him, as one says, and its title is Reft and Light: Poems by Ernst
Jandl with Multiple Versions by American Poets (Burning Deck: Providence, RI). Just at the opening
page, there’s this (by Anselm Hollo):

dilection
Some think
terring left flom light
is a piece of cake.
Boy, are they evel
long!

So beat it!

Robert Creeley
Buffalo, New York
September 30, 2000

73
William James Austin

To Jandl

I never liked Elvis Presley. As a sixties child I always found him derivative and, well, boring. I
was Beatles, Dylan and Hendrix all the way. But in mid August, 1977, while driving from New York City to
New Orleans to begin graduate work at Tulane University, I found myself awash in the man’s music. Elvis
owned the radio waves past the Mason Dixon line. After a thousand miles or so of road, I began to
develop a grudging appreciation for the man, if not for the music. Elvis was, after all, a pioneer for white
america, even if a pick-up truckload of black artists already occupied the land. So I let that hound dog
voice follow me into New Orleans. I wasn’t in my dorm room more than thirty minutes when my
roommate advised me that the King had died.
For some reason Bob Marley also got by me, at least for most of his career. I enjoy reggae well
enough, but it was never up there on my personal hit parade. One especially nasty, booze soaked night
in 1981, while on a return visit to NYC, I grabbed a taxi on 112 Street and Lennox Avenue, hoping to get
back to Queens before the sun came up. I stepped from the curb into the iron domain of the world’s
greatest Bob Marley freak. This cabbie had covered every available inch of the interior with photos of the
artist. And, of course, I sat through tape after tape of his music all the way home. The next day I bought
several Bob Marley recordings--even went into the West Village to scour the out of print bins for hard to
find vinyl. Within a day or two I had become a major fan well versed in not only the music, but in the
politics that fueled the music. No more than a week later I was informed that Bob Marley had died of a
brain tumor, or had committed suicide, or maybe the CIA had murdered him--it depended on which
conspiracy junky was relating the story.
There have been other incidents like these in my life, sudden shifts in perception, or inexplicable
reappearances like pride before a fall. I’m not a superstitious man, but I do seem to have something of a
knack for “getting in contact” with those about to die. Which brings me to Ernst Jandl.
Jandl’s poetry is so rooted in the German language, its dialects and street manipulations, that it is
nearly impossible to translate him. For this reason I had never bothered to navigate his texts. But that
changed when Jerome Rothenberg’s Poems for the Millenneum, Vol. 2 hit the bookstores. Therein were
included five strange little poems from an obvious master of semiotic horseplay. Despite my neophyte
status viz a viz Jandl, I immediately responded to the humor, to his freewheeling way with sounds and
spellings, to his wonderfully irreverent confrontations with language. My next stop was the New York
University library where I found several books by Jandl, all in German. This frustrated me since my
German is, in a word, pathetic. Was it feasible that I might crack the code and get closer to the

74
method/madness? Was it possible to reach beyond the few transalations in Rothenberg’s volume?
Initially the answer was a resounding “nope.”
Anyway, I struggled through as best I could. I had two semesters of college German under my
belt (but that was when I had a twenty-eight inch waste) and had actually passed a sophisticated reading
exam in the language as part of my Ph.D. requirements--passing the exam was, of course, sweet luck.
But as I sat in that library something from the poems got to me, something more complex than mere linear
comprehension. There was a bizarre music in these constructions, dissonant and deliciously impure.
And why not? Jandl, himself a musician, had often invited collaborations between music and poetry.
From what little I could gather from my tortured reading, his appearances at German and Austrian music
festivals were legend.
Born in Vienna, Jandl began publishing in 1956. He quickly became the leading exponent of
experimental poetry in the German speaking world, where the term “to Jandl” has achieved the status of a
verb. It means, in the broadest sense, to create concrete/ visual poetry with a strong emphasis on the
sound structures of language. Beginning with the 1940s, German literature experienced a marked shift in
aesthetic focus. The commonplace of referential symbolist productions gave way to a widespread
concern with the materiality of language, both as visual and sonorous object. This interest emerged from
concrete poetry, a style developed by the Vienna Group which included Hans Carl Artmann and Konrad
Bayer. Jandl was something of a latecomer to the group, never quite at its center. But perhaps moreso
than his Vienna comrades Jandl was concerned with the political ramifications of his work. Here’s a bit
more of what I learned, courtesy of an e-mail circulated by Charles Bernstein:
He not only explored the limits of language in his visual and sound poems, but has written
powerful political commentary by playing with Auslander-deutch, the kind of pidgin German spoken
by foreign workers. He translated Gertrude Stein, Robert Creeley’s The Island, and John Cage’s
Silence. Among his many prized in both Austria and Germany are the Georg Taki-Preis (1974) and the
Georg-Buchner-Preis.

I am, of course, less interested in official Kritic and credits than I am in the poems
themselves. “Chanson,” one of those little gems in Rothenberg’s second volume, plays with linguistic
crossovers, a litany of languages (German, French, English, et al) bleeding into one another. Meaning is
offered not in traditional referential terms, but rather as the marked similarities in the soundings of words
across national and cultural boundaries. How serious is a poem such as “Chanson’? As serious as the
play we always find in song, in the universal language of music. As political commentary, the poem both
marks the differences between peoples and signals an underlying unity. That, baby, is multiculturalism.
A second poem, “Calypso,” suggests the priority of language text over self/subject. Or, put
another way, the poem locates the self within the myriad agitations of textual devices. “ich was not yet, “
Jandle writes. “wulld ich laik du go.” Here Jandl clearly draws attention to the well of meaning within
relational sound structures. After all, how far is “wulld ich laik du go” from “would I like to go”? Other
poems such as “die tassen” and the hilarious “ottos mops” similarly commingle visual and acoustic
elements.
Which brings me back to the King and reggae prince. Sorta. No sooner had I developed
something of an obsession with Jandl, then . . . . Well, you can guess what happened next. On June 9,
75
2000 Ernst Jandl died. Maybe it’s me. Maybe if you see me coming, you should cross the street, call
911, make out a will--something. Whatever, it is high time for parochial America to accept, and
appreciate, this innovative master born from the genius of an old enemy. New translations, however
unstable, are in the works. But of course the act of translating suggests movement from one linguistic
landscape to another. Anyone who reads Jandl understands that he was never truly limited by a single
tongue. Translating these poems may be little more than a redundancy. Jandl’s art has already traveled
the distance.

IN MEMORIUM

ern stj and l

ern stj and l
ern stj and l
ern stj and l
ern stj and l
ern stj and lern stj and lern stj and lern stj and lern stj
ern stj and lern stj and lern stj and lern stj and lern stj
ern stj and lern stj and lern stj and lern stj and lern stj
ern stj and lern stj and lern stj and lern stj and lern stj
ern stj and lern stj and lern stj and lern stj and lern stj
ern stj and l
ern stj and l
ern stj and l
ern stj and l
ern stj and l

bye
song
for
eye

76
 Blaze Submission Guidelines

We want to hear from you …

BLAZE is published by Vorple Sword Publishing. Because VSP is a small but growing
organization, it is not possible at this time to pay for submissions selected. VSP can only give
artists and writers recognition and dinners if applicable.

BLAZE is printed four times a year: January, March, June, September, December. Submission
deadlines are due the end of November, February, May, and August.

All material must include the author’s name, a biographical sketch of no more than 2 pages, a
picture (optional), and a contact number if you want it included with your submission. E-mail
submissions are preferable and desired.
ggatza@daemen.edu

Poems of any length that do not suck will be given first consideration. If you are not sure
if your works sucks please do not ask us. We are not good judges on such things so you
be sure yourself before sending.

Commentaries are wanted for Vocative. Pertinent voicings of 21st century narrativity are
wanted. Manifestos on poetics should compliment the format of Blaze. The editorial
board will not support extremities of any kind. See relevant article on Parsimony.

Short stories, essays or excerpts of books should be less than 5000 words including a
200 word synopsis on the front cover. Fiction that does not suck will be given first
consideration. Essays should be engaging critical analyses, not pedantic unravelings of
the obvious.

Artwork submitted should be of good quality that will reproduce well on the computer.
Common format extensions preferred. Include artist’s picture and biographical sketch. No
slides are accepted but Powerpoint is wonderful.

Book reviews should be critical analyses of no more than 2000 words. Include the
book’s complete title, author’s name, date of publication, and publisher’s name and
address. Send query via E-mail before engaging in anything.

COPYRIGHT STATEMENT

Blaze is a quarterly magazine published by VSP. Blaze is designed to be a resource on art,

literature, and other cultural issues. All copyrights revert back to authors upon publication. All
rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced without written permission of VSP.
Contact Geoffrey Gatza, for ad rates. Publisher reserves the right to refuse any advertisements
and publication of advertising does not necessarily constitute publisher’s endorsement. Copyright
© 2000

77
 Blaze Authors

Lisa Jarnot

Lisa Jarnot was born in Buffalo, New York in 1967. She is a graduate of
the State University of New York at Buffalo (1992) and the Creative Writing
Program of Brown University (1994). She currently lives in New York City. Her
first full-length collection of poetry, Some Other Kind of Mission (Burning Deck
Press, 1996) was named an International Book of the Year by John Ashbery in
the Times Literary Supplement in 1996. Her second book, Ring of Fire, is
forthcoming from Zoland Press in February of 2000. She has taught creative
writing and literature at various colleges including Brown University, Long Island
University, and Naropa University. She has also been the editor of the Poetry
Project Newsletter (of The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church in Manhattan) and
is the co-editor of An Anthology of New (American) Poets (Talisman House
Publishers, 1998). Her writing has appeared in publications such as Grand
Street, Lingo, and The Journal of Post-Modern Culture. During the spring of 2000
she was a visiting writer at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Check out her

http://members.nbci.com/subpress/robertduncan.htm
http://members.nbci.com/subpress/duncanbio.htm

Geoffrey Gatza

Geoffrey Gatza is poet, playwright, and novelist. Proprietor of Vorple

Sword Internet Publishing and editor/web designer of Blaze: 21st Century Voice.
His three manuscripts of poetry and one novel seeking friendly editors and
publishers. Currently an undergraduate Literature/Accounting major at Daemen
College in Buffalo, NY. Planning to pursue Ph.D in poetics.

Ezra Pound

Ezra Pound (1885-1972) born on Oct 30 US poet, critic, translator. He

exerted a profound influence on 20th c. literature; wrote "Cantos," 1925-60;
indicted for treason, WW II. Comments: “No man understands a
deep book until he has seen and lived at least part of its contents.” And further
relates on this project, “People find ideas a bore because they do not distinguish
between live ones and stuffed ones on a shelf.”

Ann Erickson

bio incoming

Cydney Chadwick

Cydney Chadwick is the author of seven books and chapbooks. She has
been running Avec publications for nearly 1/3 of her life. A third generation
Californian, Chadwick lives in Penngrove, a small town about 50 miles north of
San Francisco.

John High Desire Notebook (excerpt)

JOHN HIGH is the author of several books including

Ceremonies, Sometimes Survival, the lives of thomas-- episodes and prayers,
and The Sasha Poems: A Book of Fables. He is the recipient of numerous
78
 awards and fellowships, including three Fulbrights, two National Endowments
and poetry awards from the Witter Bynner Foundation, Arts International, and
Arts Link. The publication in 1997, (excerpts from) The Sasha Poems was met
with extraordinary critical acclaim, here and abroad. The Talisman Project, an
expansive anthology of contemporary Russian poetry which he edited, Crossing
Centuries: The New Russian Poetry is due out this fall. A founding editor of the
Five Fingers Review, he has also co-translated books of the Russian poets Nina
Iskrenko, Aleksei Parshchikov and Ivan Zhdanov. His poetic trilogy of novellas,
The Desire Notebooks, was published in October, 1999. Talisman House will
publish his selected poetry in 2000. A long time resident of the Zen Center in San
Francisco, John now lives in New York where he teaches and writes for
Publishers Weekly.

Jono Schinder The Parable (excerpt)

is the author of four chapbooks: Walking & Talking (Melodeon, 1999),

The World (Instress, 1999), This is Clark (Forthcoming from Margin to Margin),
and In the Room (A+ Bend, 2000), and co-edits Untitled: A Magazine of Prose
Poetry and Instance Press, Jono Schneider lives in Albany & works in San
Francisco. Recent writing has appeared or will soon appear in Kenning, Slope,
6ix, Tinfish, Aufgabe, The Hat and Five Fingers Review. He writes in a room filled
with windows.

Christopher Reiner Pain (excerpt)

was born and raised in Southern California. He was a member of The

Drift Group of experimental filmmakers, and his writing has appeared in a variety
of journals. Since 1992 he has edited Witz: A Journal of Contemporary Poetics.
He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Cheryl Bascom.

Kim Kasey

is a student at Weber State University, Utah. Earlier this year Kim was a
participant and coordinator in the 2000 National Undergraduate Literature
Conference hosted at WSU. Currently she is causing mayhem in Odgen.

Mez

Mary-anne Breeze, better known as Mez, lives and works in Australia.

She first got into a larger net.art picture in 1997, via the net.art mailinglist 7-11.
Her work is highly "textual," but expands also to sound. Considering the
relationship between concrete poetry and music or sound this probably should
come as no surprise. She likes to change her name a lot (mz post modemism,
mezchine, ms Tech.no.whore, flesque, e- mauler, and mezflesque.exe), and
maybe because of this, plus the nature of her work, she has a less clearly
demarcated position then some other net.artists. This relative "instability,"
compared to some highly compact web artworks, is one of the attractive sides of
her work for me.

Alan Sondheim

79
 Alan Sondheim is a writer/multimedia theorist (editor of Being On Line)
who co-moderates several online lists. Potes & Poets is publishing his Parables
of Izanami and Railroad Earth in Atlanta has brought out a CDrom of his online
work over the past six years. He was also virtual writer-in-residence for the trAce
(sic) online writing community at the beginning of this year; he worked on a
number of collaborative projects at The Lost Project at trAce, and his trAce
projects are collected in their Writers-in-Residence archives. Two of Sondheim's
poems, “Subject: skyscraper-no” & “DON'T GET ME STARTED,” were featured
here at About Poetry in 1998. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with cat and cacti.

William James Austin

William Austin is an Associate Professor in the Department of English

and Humanities, and received his doctorate from Tulane University. Born in New
York, William James Austin has spent most of his life touring the city's ruins. As a
musician and songwriter, he's composed for Lou Rawls, Hammer, and other rock
and jazz notables. His first book of poems, Underworld 1 & 2, was published in
1994 and Underworld 3 & 4 in the fall of 1998. The Fire and the Rose: A
Deconstruction of T.S. Eliot, was published in 1996 by the University of Salzburg
Press in Austria. In 1991 he was nominated by The Boston Literary Review and
the noted avant garde critic, Richard Kostelanetz, for the Pushcart Prize.

80
 an.online.journal.of.voice

2003 Compendium PE (Premium Edition)

Spring & Winter 2003

Copyright © 2003 | all rights reserved

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copyrighted by the BlazeVOX2k3. All rights reserved. No part of these
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Premium Edition
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Commentary by the writer-director
Commentary by the design team
Commentary by the production / post-production team
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SPRING 2003 ............................................................................................................8

JOHN M. BENNETT .......................................................................................9

AARON S. BELZ.............................................................................................19

GABRIEL GUDDING....................................................................................20

ETHAN PAQUIN & CHRISTINA MENGERT ....................................30

ANDREW TOPEL............................................................................................35

FRANCIS RAVEN ...........................................................................................38

JOEL CHACE ....................................................................................................44

RAYMOND FARR ..............................................................................................49

MICHAEL BOGUE ..........................................................................................52

KARI EDWARDS..............................................................................................54

TREY SAGER & THOMAS COMERFORD .......................................57

BOB BRUECKL ............................................................................................63

THE DONNA MATRIX ..................................................................................66

LOOPPOESIA THE POETICS OF REDUNDANCY........................................70

WINTER 2003.........................................................................................................79

STEVE TIMM ....................................................................................................83

W.B. KECKLER ..............................................................................................90

SHEILA E. MURPHY ........................................................................................98

MICHAEL RUBY .............................................................................................103

CHRISTOPHER JANKE.............................................................................110

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DUANE ESPOSITO ..................................................................................... 117

THEODORE KNAPSACK ......................................................................... 126

JUKKA-PEKKA KERVINEN .................................................................. 129

DOUG DRAIME............................................................................................... 132

MICHAEL FARRELL .................................................................................... 142

JORGE LUCIO DE CAMPOS ................................................................ 144

HARRIET ZINNES ...................................................................................... 152

CHRIS STROFFOLINO ............................................................................ 154

GERBURG GARMANN ............................................................................. 156

GREGORY VINCENT ST. THOMASINO...................................... 159

GORDON HADFIELD................................................................................... 160

LEV RUBINSTEIN ..................................................................................... 174

PAUL ERIC KUNGAR // IMAGE POETRY.................................................... 205

SPECIAL FEATURES ................................................................................ 209

DELETED SCENES ....................................................................................... 210

[ BONUS + FEATURE ] ...................................................................................... 216
PRODUCTION STAFF & LINER NOTES.......................................... 242

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Director’s Commentary

When I set out to

make my first
monster poem, I
intended to create a
parody of Steven’s
‘Man with the Blue
Guitar” called ‘Blue
Scream’ although I
toyed with, “I Know
What You Did With That Blue Guitar Last Summer, Man” but this was too
lucid for my purpose. Keeping true to the genera, I would write some crazy
lines, jumping in and out of random scenes, employ ridiculous fonts, feisty
monster specimens, and heavy on the irrational … etceteras. For lack of an
appropriate tone, I came across the classic ‘makers’ dilemma: I reached the
production phase and lacked every critical element for my beautiful idea. I
needed to create life from scraps. Thus my first monster poem became a
true to life monster.

A few days into writing I realized I was sunk. I had about five pages of crap I
intended for filler, and this was all I had. So, I made the stereotypical
decision many poets in the monster/horror genre make: work with what you
have; focusing on: (drum-roll please) special effects. This decision I felt
made my poem true unto itself. Without plot or talent, many modern poets
focus simply on the look of the page through impressive visual effects. I
found my poem and myself in a situation that called specifically for this
strategy: WOW the reader with FX and hope they don’t notice the lack of
substance.

Like many monster poems this was ambiguous, undefined, and

unidentifiable, and lacking in plot and character. Once I’d put together the

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7

poem, title and all, the decision to use impressive visuals was the right one.
It is only reasonable for visuals to enter our poetry. For comfort we come to
moving pictures as the voice of the USA; this is the heart of entertainment.
This as a next step for poetry bonds the vivacious word to the immediacy of
the image. The irrational imagination embracing instrumental fear … images
only feed the mysterious.

I set out to make a monster poem, not a poem about monsters. The
combination fit my purpose, I do have some personal regrets, though. In the
end, the decision to focus on special effects fully realized the experience,
making the final product genuine. And provided an excellent opportunity to
use some effects filters, like ghost trails I’d been dying to try. So, now we
must decide, when monsters enter our poetry, do we run to them or do we
run far,

far,

away?

enjoy :-)

Geoffrey Gatza
__o
_`\<,_
(*) / (*)

+ BlazeVOX2k3 Editor : http://www.blazevox.org

++ HouseCat Kung Fu : http://www.blazevox.org/zoo/
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++++ Poetry USA | Bio : http://www.blazevox.org/gatza
+++++ Starcherone Books : http://www.starcherone.com

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an.online.journal.of.voice

2003 Compendium PE (Premium Edition)

Spring 2003

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John M. Bennett
John M. Bennett has published over 200 books and chapbooks of poetry,
visual poetry, and other materials. Among the most recent are rOlling
COMBers (Potes & Poets Press), MAILER LEAVES HAM (Pantograph
Press), CHAC PROSTIBULARIO (with Ivan Arguelles; Pavement Saw
Press), and LOOSE WATCH (Invisible Books). He is editor of LOST AND
FOUND TIMES, and Curator of the Avant Writing Collection at The Ohio
State University Libraries.

B leach

denk shad ow
b lank comb
re up anal
troll s tore
pond c lap
w all sleep
b utter lent
rule c lam
sneak sp rat
h at mud
sp ray ear
soon p ill
calm s and

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s pool air
s pool calm
soon sp ray
h at sneak
rule b utter
w all pond
troll re ap
b lank denk
shad ow comb
anal s tore
c lap sleep
lent c lam
sp rat mud
ear p ill
s and air

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Hache, 1

Hum

spake eye shadowed groin nub

cabled )tab floated sieve .nape
itch ,dangled roofy wave( beast
?)"rabbits in my tummy" gas
heel ,couldn't raise ,trance help

least nor all .cable should

but .tamed vomits cage ,the
bars "gleam" ,"I" wasn't ,ash
foot samples ,grave mist he
d ranks the shoulder meats goo

lasts .inching head rake ,rukus

apes )gleamed lapwise( ornithology "site"
where ,each chunky blade lawn
bottoms south .c rave sheet ,bonk
rasp ,spade trembles through wet

dawn !gave trouble sleeves ,bonking

rots the stairs transpiration kinda
fog rubble ,was it shoey
?roots glue ,nab the blade
hole the bunk er s pool

.screwy was .snapped .triple rubble

cams or camophage the chewy
leg gashed leaks the lake
reach ...clambered lousy ,brat contention
,gave sewage or eye )combination

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Hache, 2

Haft

guessed itchy salad thongs wore

the )cloaca( gate tumbled eye
wedding in your "stew"//raft
awful ran cid stumbled from
his house .grave the key

slashed away .out clinging .brake

intention ,stumbled row awry ,wash
crazy like a blanker sheet
.trash bench you drooled upon
leaves cluttered down .brave crap

feet absorbed .gosh in tidy

flag blanker comb than .bees
dive and .ouch cave booth
rancid was your shawl louse//
grinning ?cheese wall booming clap

moving in the bowl .wiping

all the flags 'n .grapple
sandwich ,orify ,sail roomy slug
credenza or was that cad
?trace of "fluid" uh ,raft

plugged .so go and .sandwich

hide ,eat nothing wall crumb
place or wallet .nor rest
nor plunger nor the sobbing
hah !lace retching ,gately clean

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Utee

sleek hammer shadow gas scrawl

,tell me lit ,miel foam
racing in the sleeve d rink
cast of shirking ,pond s cum

pond basic ,pull heaping bread

wash nap the c rafty spent
water ,stall the vole lint
,sleeve inflation or your ,s nap

your pustule text your woof

napkin pampers mask ,runny face
water ,kinda cheese ,roquefort lumps
planet vapor or brain you

brain a cough slack ,roof

n itch ,bent the pampers muzzle
sport :bah aft ploded ,like
a shot a wen spoon

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wen gift plod ,grunt fool

porky cig against your ear
,balloon slacked "beside the spawn"
cut stink .the rock hole

rock wallet tenders in a

box ("cig") clusters at the
lamp like smoke or slaw
dropped on bulb ,pensive act

pensive hooting down the hall

blank wallet "see my boat?"
sunk elbow in the pasta
"falconi" rust sizzles ,map laughs

map sugar on yr tongue

a cardboard tube you fart
lip inside ,elbow in yr
crotch nuzzle me ,shorts burning

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shorts call the fume "Hank"

waffle crumbling in the corn
syrup tube hooting .blew a
sort ,a stumble knew blank

knew nest reaching floor the

wheel "hooting" at the empty
corner gravel boxes stacked your
bed it was sky's fuzzy

sky rented for a waterfall

,slow glum repeat ,splashing on
your shoes "empty" sock flapping
light low above the trees

the goon gun waiting in

the underbrush Mr. Socks kept
against the sink .faucet inversion
.glans loss .buzzing trunk slit

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trunk sentence or you left

a snore faucet clam eye
rug dermititis sore a sandwich
.cute shims !all that musturd

that trouser flake ,them .hog

file you kept ,"rug" ,hover
slept frowsy combination rope churned
,!ay Lula engomame! trounced slab

trounce my coffee snicker heap

o flubination monster trouser crotch's
summer leaping in the freezing
air ("hair") the shed storm

shed grimace like a turd

.spore you licked ,mighty stormed
miel caving in your arm
speech tucked in sleek snippers

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Nominou Hominu
(by Kara Quarles & John M. Bennett)

to Ve oor el dice ras sor dice sor can sor tire dice can soron sa kor
tire el or korrand kor to ras tas vite bire Dorozire on or tas ber Ve
re soron a tas sa el sive sim vind on sa sa Ve Mon soron kor or por
sand soron dire gosham el tire to re dice Mon

Sar gon rap inag loss epaepa yon hondele' wariba legume'
Sen achar ib guff me dwan rol ling-fo ort nustnust xenog obblin
g'duuz
se ne ol ba de ri ko ji hu ni mo re to ux as de lo na za fa ob mi da
lele mimi jiji lolo curooolio popo limnasu chasu chalickil ickifwaaa
figueranax obsterotonkastanopt jel tor guft shromertre ullikummi bios

Ha conga hopt din fangerd shud mest ti floopy mork: plrze atter nast,
plang brot nooble leats! cort nok shadr flale ro sonter writch. meast uh
coka hanf fout fuddlet yeep (ro maska henn). Ro pantsy hool? roka
rampt bigle spled...

proist sanidas prosim anakremasanta thesmophoriatron oika nokritika

Haw dza g'a ma lo? Naw ya pi daw maw mi, mi a lo?
unshokotosammon!
epikrousis b'lindey eda.. phuge ara atimiaclantis.. Sphageus melitch-
nipped haizle-fortis, blagomonked doel. bribbleefried dzaposphazen
vreelinkery pala qhaqrararashan wayra phuyushan..

pusha strake slank fwed hanster slag itc. Spo shub mastk hangder
heedy, wasta hinp? Cun fladdle fank, cun fust. Feety souker spo hunq
fordy speemer! Fooster ments, masta nanger radden flought luh
flauchet; fonper fomd abross uh nook...

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Aaron S. Belz

ANTI-WAR POEM

Mrs. Ellicott got married before she was marriagable,

in Terms of her parents' expectations anyway.
Fanbelt needed, ex vertebrate Monocle CURL.

I was alone in the pantry, I'll admit it,

but send away the BLACKSMITHS and their
Fan wiper shamans, because long pause, in

Mankind needs no more bellydancers

wandering around volcanoes, gadzooks, take
a picture, sneak a copy of FRILLSHANK

With Monster gone I can blow balogna backwards

out my hatch. I am sorry. Forgive me.
This is a poem. It deserves tinv oduwbv ud

Weapon destruction but with what? No war?

Turn the channel What Melanie BOMB
beaker beaker beaker beaker stove

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Gabriel Gudding
Gabriel Gudding's first book A Defense of Poetry (Univ of Pittsburgh Press,
2002) won the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize. He teaches literature and creative
writing at Illinois State University. The title poem of his book appears in the
Scribner anthology Great American Prose Poems: From Poe to the Present
due out April 2003 and edited by David Lehman. Conchology: Poetics & the
moistened asterisk http://gabrielgudding.blogspot.com/

rhode island notebook 9.20.02—9.22.02

2:10 PM 9.20.02 Turn left onto

Main fr. College. Black ink?
Saturn is the bringer of old age.
Hwy 74 2:25 PM. Try maintain 70 mph
A line I wd have written at 15: in Sept.
the fields crescendo w/ corn.
Gustav Holst 7 mvmnts of the Planets.
We move now to your anus, the magician.

How you bombed me in the pimple.

It was unusual Lois who bombed me in the pimple

from high in the cold mountains

She was somewhere in the timber wood

in a dirty cabin of the purplest mtn.

She whistles to her dog there.

That is the home of the lady

who bombed me in the pimple.

85.8 m Welcome to Indiana

Crossroads of America.
What about her caused her to walk
purposely into

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What had caused her to walk w/

terrible deliberation

past the dark farm of her strong and angry

daughter
down then cross the digitalis peppered hill
over two string-like creeks and a yarn-like ditch, past

a clot of 4 sleeping ducks and under

the blonde-green dreadlocks of a shivering willow

the flaps of skin on my head I call

my ears

drinking from a bright can

I realized after driving 210.9 miles that the reason I was upset was not b/c
the steering wheel still seemed misaligned despite the 59 dollars but that my
scrotum had been folded tightly under my perineum. Whatever warm
thought-induced anaesthesia had erased or edited the messages dispatched
from my distressed scrotum across western Illinois, whatever mental
epidural had thrown its body against the door of my medulla oblongata as I
drove, the Thermopylae of my spinal cord, this protective force had been
overrun and I was now in pain

tussus feculence dottles. Urinic

Why had she bombed my pimple. It was not an ornery pimple. Had I some
redoubt on it? Some consolate outpost busy with typists. What but the white
basilica of the pus-bleb rode the broad bailey of my pimple?

sebum. The slick field of sebum

spreading into the plains of my face
Brookville OH 267.4 m Exit 21
itty majiggers
6:43-6:54 Gas Stop
@ 276 m
Was Lois, the odd lady who bombed
my pimple, devoid of good regard
for me? Was there an indefatigable
contumely against acne?
339 m to Junction 270 N
Whom among us shd have our
pimples bombed!
emotional incontinence
flaccid diction
“tactical overdeployment” of the
word “love” D F Wallace
which, I submit, …
hypertonically
what lonely, odd, intricately paisled

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cosmology wd cause her to

deploy
to induce
Why was not my pimple antipodal to
her lonely purple mortar-bearing mtn?

Punitive use of ordnance against

my pimple

As if a bell had rung deep in my face

and my jaw vibrated w/ it
my jaw’s reverberation from the bell
that had rung coldly beneath my
bone (zygoma) the vibration’s paths became complex
when they entered the 6 flaps of
skin that delimit the front and sides
of my face namely my ears, the
2 circular flaps of epidural constitutive of
my nostrils, & the 2 intricate
flaps of muscle that are
the facial labia. beneath my nostrils

a mouth being a toothed bubble. exordium

Had the bombing reduced the ability of

my face to display affect?

Catachretic b.s.

the weighty boom of the shell as it

burst on my pustule
reverberated
around the topography of my head.

The mortar shell landed at the

very top of the conical pimple
w/ a sonorous boomlet
cutting away the top & leaving a
small caldera a semi-solid lake
of blood and long-anchored pus.

My crazy illness of booze

and crying so heavily that
had I built a levy upon my cheek
it would have drowned the Cortusa of my chin

Adolescence’s prevailing theme’s

the eruption of pimples, the
elongation of the groin, extension

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of the nipples forward, hips

sideways, buttocks backward
and tongues & lips that go clucking
& wooing toward other lips & tongues
Sleep fr. 2:30-7 AM EST at 672 m

the tongue, that flip arbiter of

language and want. that
deft electrical flap. That
welcome mat of the head.

Autumnal buttocks their

pear-like sag

One of the great enigmas

Exit 20 Prov 12:58 PM EST 1094.8 m
Arrive M & M & C 1097.2

8:32 AM Fill on gas get

2 old fashions 9.22.02 Sunday
1 m from M&M&C.

The best cup of coffee I ever had was

driving south on Hwy 95 of Providence RI.
The first sip was taken 21.3 m S of the
city. Speed 71 mph. Cloudless sky.

40 m fr. m’s door CT border. 9:10 AM EST

Arkansas Balladeer Convention

An Arkansas balladeer singing of

the sacrifices of mail carriers
91.3 NPR SE CT
Large white spider on windshield
in the lee of the wipers been there
since Prov. probably fell fr. a tree
Above M’s driveway 55.9 m from Prov.

“The life of the poet is one

of ease, happiness, constant joy,
freedom”
-- Maxine Hong Kingston
NPR 91.3 FM 59.2 m fr. Prov.
Stupid voice: open throat whisper

Taste guards lies.

“We all have it.” “Poetry is everywhere

all around us.” M. Hong Kingston

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To be The Poet Harvard UP Kingston sounds

defensive suspicious smug

Exit 69 Hwy 9 N. 70 m fr. Prov.

Can’t stand the voice of Garrison
Keiler. It’s saccharin
Hansen has a fake laugh.

Boston’s Transit Police uses classical

music as a crime deterrent as a
youth repellent
90.5 NPR Hwy 9 78 m

Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings

Haddam & Higganum

Barreling down the macadam

btw Haddam & Higganum
I passed a lady there
selling aspirin n laudanum

at the corner of Crimea and

East-to-West Higgallum

107 m. 91 S to 691 W

TOM
TAD
TIM

Had she been selling

lingerie & encomiums
or an encomium to lingerie
I might have stopped.
But I didn’t.

Some kind of penitentiary just

inside NY border, Caramel NY
160 m fr. Prov. 11 AM EST
Wrong: that was a factory.

Frid. Night I was gassing in Easter

Ohio & I met a guy on the pump
opposite wearing a uniform & gassing a
white nondescript van. He’d queried me
re where I’m fr. in IL (plates), asked b/c
he’d been there, drives all over, he’d been to
B/N. Said his job was extradition

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movement of prisoners fr. place to place. Said

it keeps him on his toes.

183 m fr. Prov. here’s the penitentiary

Peekskill NY ? New 9D Junction to
Weppinger Falls Beacon
Exit 11
185 m Hudson River bridge over.
“The Hamilton Fish
Newburgh Beacon”
A fart: ventloquism
DONUT CHYME.
DONUT. CHYME. BOLUS. FECES. DUNG. SOIL
Wheat. Donut Chyme Bolus
FECES DUNG SOIL WHEAT DONUT
CHYME BOLUS FECES DUNG SOIL
Wheat DONUT This assuming we
make donut fr. wheat. What if we make
donut from feces scooping it directly
from the rectum Feces DONUT CHYME
BOLUS FECES DONUT NO this wd
short circuit the AGRICO-DIGESTIVE Cycle
Snipping the mobius loop of nutrition
and splicing out photosynthetic regeneration of
nitro-carbonic compounds.
Beverly is the only proper name
that I can think of at the moment that
cd serve as an ADVERB
225 fr. Prov. PA Border
Hwy 84
DAVID FOSTER WALLACE IS TURGID
NAY BOMBASTIC: “Luminous intensity of
the light”? yeah he wrote that

I suspect that a “respect for authority”

is merely a respect for socio-economic
capital. This “respect for authority” bears
a concomitant & converse disrespect for
those w/out socio-economic capital.
The idea, furthermore, of a “moral authority” is
contradictio de adjectivo. True morality cannot
be buttressed w/ doctrine nor scaffolded
w/ law. Executive & legislative power can
sometimes be allied w/ morality but that is not
license to confuse the two.

MLA registration. Insurance. Call Mom re sitting

Lackawanna historical society.
Of interest to the women of Jenkins
are the men of Wilkes-Wray

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7.412 gallons 1:19-1:30 stop to fill on. Had to wash

car by hand in front b/c truck
got diesel oil on car via its
exhaust maybe
Ask M. if she’d like to use my
desktop
Ears are like an early kind of seashell stapled to the
sides of our heads
Lewisburg PA 365 m fr. Prov.
near Exit 210 80 w

The left & right versions of the

seashell are the male & female sexes
of the species and yr head
is the mechanism they use to mate
Yr head is in fact a pod utilized
to facilitate the mating of yr ears.
They are copulating right now, behind yr
face, somewhere just above -- & slightly
behind yr. throat.

My jaws are ransacking yr lips.

393 m fr. Prov. those impressive
immense cut-cakes of cliffs.
It is not even my lips that are
searching & rummaging over yrs
It is my whole jaw. My very head is
frisking yr head searching the 2
fleshy grenadiers posted at the gatehouse of yr talk yard.
exit 48 Hwy 80 w Exit 2 miles
Emlenton PA 529 m fr. Prov.
4:36 PM EST.
Ave speed since departure 66 MPH

After gassing up in Drums, PA at

1:25 PM (the time is now 5:02 PM) I
ground the starter for the 1st time
Clio said yesterday she doesn’t
like my beard. Very high whine to
the tires 560 m fr. Prov, 12 M fr
Ohio border.
1st strong signs of autumnal
chromatic metamorphoses in the leaves:
a few minutes west of Youngstown OH
Pale yellow in what appear to be alder
ocherous reds too just west of
bridge over Meander Reservoir.

649 m fr. Prov. Junction Hwy 71 S.

6:25 PM EST Columbus 101 m

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Send dead flies to Julie, her parents,

X-tian, Margaret, Wm & Christine,
My parents, Jean, Cheryl, Terry, Denise
Carolyn, Rita, Sara, Sarah, Bill Ranson,
Nancy Taylor, Bill Arney, Raley, Poch, &
all in Market 2001-2002 folder

STOP TO PEE at 676 m rest stop 71 S

(1st pee today at 1:27 PM) 6:55 PM

That was an utterly ill-designed

reststop fr the ingress pt to the
egress and the bathroom was

small rains
throughout
Ohio
Dotty not
Splattery rains

Dot-inducing rains 1-3 millimeter dots.

Bug splats rare those that do
appear on windscreen are fr lepidopterae
(the wing dust colors them)
(No apians or dragonflies, no dipterae or
mosquitoes). Sun crisply & orange in the
east south east 55 m N of Columbus Just
above the tree line occluded by the crests of
many low hills.

7:20 EST Sun flickering through the

trees & low roadside bushes. Overhead
sky still very bright pink & blue &
gray electrical vanilla. Headlights
bright beads string behind me in the
rearview mirror. An entire bank of
immense trees appears on eastern
side of HWY & is stoutly bearing up
against a huge wave of flamingo pink
fire splashed off the sunset. The reflection
fr. the lit bank of trees is at once
pink & green. 7:30 quick glimpse of the sun as it trips into
a dark thin fuzzily dentate line of trees & falls into the horizon.
Dusk has begun.

I like the voice of Etta James.

Faith & Justice Radio Show

95.1 FM Columbus

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Often at night I dream

of the little yam of yr womb

847 m fr. Prov. IN/OH border

What is an emergency but a

sudden, aversion-based need
to move things along quickly. It is a
calendrical problem

10:21 STOP TO URINATE 895 m

fr. Prov.

10:25 on hwy again

4 minute stop

Also send dead fly to Jordan Davis

Road construction is pipe organ

music gone wrong.

pipedreams.org
-- Michael Barone

I make 74 W 937 m 10:05 CT

My favorite instrument is the pipe organ.

Lavasoft -- spyware freeware

download & install
Kim Komando Show
1. Scandisk
2. defrag
leave alone duplicate DLL files

1009 m = IL Border 11:05 PM CT

11:15 PM PEE STOP 1020 m

11:19 PM on road again

Salt Kettle Rest Area, IL

technolargical

3.97 million blocks of stone

2.5 tons each on average
in the Great Pyramid

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fr. 12-16 tons at bottom to

½ ton at top

artbell.com
gizapower.com

must buy toothbrush

Wm Rosenberg he was 86, founder of Dunkin’ Donuts

died today 9.21.02 in Cape Cod

1093 Exit into BL, IL

exit 135

Buzz Aldrin, 72 yrs, punches

37 yr old man debunker of moon
landing

1096.6 m fr. Prov arrive BL

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Ethan Paquin &

Christina Mengert
Ethan Paquin is the editor of Slope. He shares some are some collaborations with
Christina Mengert, a talented poet at Brown whose work is forthcoming in the new
Slope. www.slope.org

let us say prime and mean

not time or beef or before its

let us mean prism

let's keep up rains

downpour hold gutter

or then what?

low lip in vise

and for what?

prosthetic meat
(its surface meaning

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that which could not eradicate

the guess what kind of bird i see
pending light I for risen
pending birds the sun unleavened
peeling back but for barren
depending on an all-unravelled
mission given wing
to swatch sun with flight
pelt sun with burn or smother

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what to make of snowdrifts

teeth-cut dirge

is this how she's to look

basking black lowly as a centerfold

or winter's even

is this how she's to mend

looking back even as a child

slip hanging a

how away's her far away

mile or so between gusts

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‘Those were sweet.’

pursuant, as it were
to not to the rules of the DMV

licking upside
down line outside progresses,

to conjunction and lost

too-la la la fra la la.

this burn, two times rendered

this wint'ry burn, wint'ry line,

not writ such that writ

wrings the 'hindcounter twit

entwined. though sweet

as her [clerk's] two gumsnaps

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be brought back
/ certain proximities – so rare, so peach –

should we (yes) should area

let me know if you're ever in

and I'll let you know when I get nearer you
or, even better, providence

send the dead

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andrew topel
explores the possibilities of shape and language. he has poetry
in lost and found times, xtant, score, gestalten, farrago,
basinski, blackbird, and paradoxia. have a beautiful day.

cyclone

martagon sunstruck forceps conceptualized archt

Ushas solo throne gruing by how we ail
Libyan uakari accuracy Eucarya Edith
rhino undraping android unwritten
tiltyard Wotan fly capons ophthal
amputation emptied syllables
cachalots force torque issue
chasten cohesion questions
cranky widest foreran
embryonic metrology
playpen azaleas
Thayne fraying
turvy stare out
eye tied
spoke
lip

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cell-division

ever soul
Nueva indef.
century frozen
echo folic Ch.E.
octave spray lunar manna
eyelet dense rawhide coded
phoneticians abased sleuth sired
opepe outage shed rave huamachil
arrayed hemoglobin Zlobin sun chalk
Apiaceae beyond ethical boundaries
scup tanto glistened laid meliorate
artificial Lacolle pawns repent
penance glycine Inge wiper
illusory thief sloth growth
centra aurify writhe Niue
upset maggot bandeau
half Magog

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droplet

knapweed cymling age-old coup, ukases Bornean grisea

Wolof erases all thought afloat thalloid
scythe gene in rachitis narrows
rhinal sight; Hopewell Alouatta
errhine malope image indef.
oils your skeleton recurs
weave spinosus eluate
madly miser inst visits
Unix reactant knobs
snowing bare back
lashing tack had tach
literacy swallowed
tau, world awol
Ulugh plug byte
bio snorts infant
Procyon tome
implosion Quito
mouton yataghan
Raipur triangle
Alsace brain
Furlaud of he
dox Mollah
optic Yutaka
adieux
seep
up
b
e
y
o
n
d

g
r
a
v
i
t
y

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Francis Raven

Cant' Can't

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plug

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Revealed Growth

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Strophe

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Texture Question 9

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Transformed Conversation

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Joel Chace
Joel Chace has poems in publications such as Lost and Found Times,
Tomorrow, Big Bridge, pith, Coracle, Three Candles, paper tiger '01, 6ix,
xstream, sidereality, and shampoo. He has published more than a dozen
collections of poetry, including, most recently, Uncertain Relations--Birch
Brook Press, Greatest Hits--Pudding House Publications, and o-d-e--
Runaway Spoon Press. He is currently Poet In Residence at Mercersburg
Academy and is Poetry Editor of 5_Trope Magazine at Webdelsol.

mixing bags

even the sane begin to attend dismembered but quite accustomed

to it gripped by awe at not getting any asked if we thought the sky
was a uniform color in biblical days formerly an airline company an
irate pursuer of the undiscovered even evincing a natural talent for
episcopal vision

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aping more than swinging

uniquely assembled passage from piously schematic tome shred moreover

correspondence known only to outsiders when prescribing poignantly
comical decentralized ingredients slugger reached that point where every
evening he'd puff into his headgear back away from wariness treachery
and status

claimant

intriguing piles intriguingly akimbo then the supplementary muck

died very inappropriately could have been worse since satan removed
his tail before sitting on their chests and his snarls had ebbed
debonairly the boors are always with us put our fear to the bound

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bookkeeper retreat

but she was elsewhere in the cause he joined so far from the heart
of the heart of the documentary to break that pattern of leaving while
money was still softening while symbols were still averaging
out such estranged cities carbon copies of urchins one maenad
higher they just couldn't stand it

back from the mall

salty conclusion for such a trunkless constellation probably straining

too hard to revote too hard to sabotage limits and skittishness just
but rough delusions do stagger Puccini heroines hollow legs well you
subtract parts pay the price burden the beast in the hopes of orderly
conduction

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force song

goddamn Gretel took the cooking water from the forest again though
that description's rather harsh locally driven faces stayed the course
possessive orbit inflicting no edge ploy involving outbreaks of
reading gravity and silk moreover to insist that acquiescence is a
porch of a different color

dispersion

surely a shock since she said that morning only that she felt a little
cuspy someone should have sensed the odds dropping with every
syllable boundaries reorganized then placed in the ranks not
allowing backtracking in slow motion however dancing wasps
might have repeated or become fatigued

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cache

trouble when he drew a line in the simile uniform all desperate

so far as to threaten ingeniousness even tried to illustrate by
heat but golly the hail turned right back around straying from
both the scent and the cracked complaints you know you hate
it when they put the title first forearmed is foreordained

getting about it

so characteristic of enumeration subsidiary reluctance taut elbows parts

of letters viciously gridded actually missing vertigo after being dead
on after laughing at the graduate's abode tickled proportions crazy
backward sources wait or cut fish

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Raymond Farr
can be reached in Ocala, FL

Beautiful Comic Savior I

In time with his right foot invisible in goose step

Aloof spoofs in name only
His other foot marching a flame out his clown hair blazing
The voice admonished: Don't follow!
Escaped!
Itinerary of slapstick solipsism
One: Recoup lost grandeur
Two: Snap avuncular polka dot suspenders
So cold why blame?
He came inside her in this gospel
She shivered as laughing rolled from her bed

Who laughed
Was shot naked truth enjambed
Down
A ditch

Ditch water mocking clouds a dream of clowns

How propose the immortal and lie there simultaneously?
How regret our birth-shock
And not giggle, scream, laugh, slapping our sides?

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Beautiful Comic Savior II

His law is seltzer down Auschwitz's pants

A live grenade necktie: How can one write poetry
After such shenanigans?
The flop-flip of his shoes rivals hanged man's wriggle
His buzzer handshake collapses our guard

Humph! Drat! Gurgle! Splat!

Gurgle! Splat! Humph! Drat!

Pistons greased
The savior inspects his faithful machines
Specific as glow around him
Of nature vs. nurture
He stands out in a crowd
Heretics impressed by bomb-squad apostles
Stooges of enlightenment!

Oh, Beautiful Comic Savior, they moan

Oh, Beautiful Comic!

Oh, Beautiful Savior!

Oh, Savior of the beautiful malignant cell, they chant

Give us Peace & Harmony!

Bring us Light & Joy!
And a can of joke-snakes vital/visual as starvation
Preach jabberwockey ecstasy
Let us down into your pit your audience
Send us your ladder of half-sawed rungs
When laughter tapers the end
We weep
Addict us to jokes and Death's rubber chicken
May seem edible fare

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Dire Art

Godless aesthetics--Guernica.
The ground never appears only flashes of
light--a bulb! A sword of--
snapped as it is lifted, the hand
holding it seems to hold it,
is part of an arm (army?) Clear?
Nothing is clear. Mayhem is
the hour of a painting called...
a poem entitled, unfinished...
the colors die like goldfish in the reliquary of the unimagined & sterile
carnage of our zeitgeist.
Move & the head falls
over. Sing or attempt to sing
& the one note disturbs our daydreams,
disturbs the minotaur.
Find a quaint retreat in Majorca & never return.
Find the bliss of Madrid prior to 1930 & mourn for us all.
Devote your life to art or philandering but never forget the flower woman
trapped like a dove in her own skull.
Cower in the art patron's wine cellar & never get sober, you'll feel
his angst like only a comrade can.
Once I would have ordered you to decide:
Decide! I'd say. You must decide!
You are a Fascist! Or you are a Loyalist!
I can't decide, I can't decide!

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Michael Bogue
Michael Bogue is a twenty-eight year old poet living in London, Ontario. He
has previously published in Textshop, Afterthoughts, Defiance!, as well as
appearing at the local reading series at the Forest City Gallery. His primary
concerns as a poet are the interrelationship between aesthetics, inspiration
and language.
Editors Note: Be sure to check out Michael's ebook Chainsaws and
Wildflowers

*stabbng opn a can of mad ric*

stabbng opn a can of mad ric w/ a defectiv cankiller

from th foodbank(turnd me down for a lin a credt)

smallredTVnocable locl stations only th rice is lik

rubbr (does rubbr grow wild? i gues it duz so wat?)

th cop came to my dor im not in truble(yet) but my

super rippd off th rentmony i gave to hm so i showd

th cop rceits & offerd hm an xpresso he remarkd

on how clean my place wuz just cuz i cant affrd a

canopenr dont meen im a slob cant afford cabl but th

locl chanl sho cops(badboysbadboyswutugonnado?)

lucky for th ratngs they dont sho cops nocking (do

they take a cours so they can all nock&sound&

wlk&pound al alike they must) on my dor why do

i offr him coffee anywy hes prolly th same guy who

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will b askng to see my id at som point becaus i hav

long hair (or i did untl i grew weary of cops hasslng

me & wondering if it was the 50s again at least no

bdy cal me a beatnck) al i had in my cubrd was...

fuck al... wel i decidd if "da man" wernt gettng my

rentmony anywa i mght as wel get my cut too

so my landlrd didnt see a dim frm me fr sixmonths

he never evicted me propr but i left on my own

& left th cans ther hope smbdy ate thm & i hope

smbdy tossd tht damn canopenr in th Thames rivr

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kari edwards
kari edwards is a poet, artist and gender activist, winner of New Langton
Art’s Bay Area Award in literature(2002), author of a day in the life of p. ,
subpress collective (2002), a diary of lies - Belladonna #27 by Belladonna
Books (2002), Electric Spandex: anthology of writing the queer text, Pyriform
Press (2002), obLiqUE paRt(itON): colLABorationS, xPress(ed) (2002), and
post/(pink) Scarlet Press (2000). sie is also the poetry editor I.F.G.E’s
Transgender - Tapestry: a International Publication on Transgender issues.
hir work has been exhibited throughout the united states.

the look's not to be trusted - it's better to twist then sneeze

ends disappeared with the best of them, becoming sulfur and mercury that
becomes fingers on the hand. the typical what for's become further
conveniences' to become every whether tods bravely tethered to pluses and
minuses, carrying on about zed and naught parenthesis filled with
burgeoning slightness of edge, beckoning with broadcast hand-jobs and
perma-press 60 watt fantasies. a collateral was set up at 5.5%, accruing
interest on a bimonthly rotation, allowing each the option of the position and
a personal motto. all this, while from a location still is yet to be determined
through a filter of whispers came: "someone is in upset, someone is in upset
. . ." it didn't stop for days; " someone is in upset . . ."
at the same time or one of those moments later that seems like the same
time the young and nubile stated to appear everywhere in groups of three or
not singing: "someone is in upset and we are here to help." reaching out with
their pincher type appendages. all fades to black. at that same moment; the
symbol of an eagle, a cross, a star, a pyramid, one eye, and a cross-stitched
adage of; " there's no place like home" - appears, then there is a clicking
sound of guns or heels, and again - " there's no place like home."

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too much wrong

WHAT AM I DOING? I don't know what the hell you're doing here? How Am I
Doing? How Am I Doing? How the fuck am I going to get the 1.3k I lost in
vegas back? What the Hell Am I Doing? Am I Doing? Am I Doing This
Right?... RE: Big Errors ... What Am I Doing Here. ...Why am I doing this? ...
"What Am I Doing Here?" ... encounters with "What Am I Doing Here?" never
explicitly tackles this eponymous question How am I doing? What Am I
Doing? On or about November 1, 2001 Why Am I Doing This? In 1986 I read
a really cool book. What am I doing here?" Welcome to yet another year -
did you expect to find something other than What am I doing wrong?? "Re:
what am I doing wrong"; What am I doing in Holland?? What Am I Doing?
Copyright © 1999 Letter Four - What Am I Doing Here? WHAT AM I DOING
??? I Got an idea !!! See here's the deal, I'm still here ... What am I doing? I
need to rethink what I'm doing in my what the hell am I doing (Diaries). What
am I doing here Transcribed by Am I Doing Anything Wrong?

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I take a walk and my task is different with each glance

Take on the role of hit man, enforcer, getaway driver and more in your
struggle for respect, money and power. take actions without thinking about
the consequences? Find the best online casinos and gambling information at
Take Vegas Home! We'll take them back A photographer takes on a native
land TAKE FREE ENNEAGRAM TEST FIND SIMILAR MINDS take it again!
find more SIMILAR MINDS Take Our Trip Planner For a Test Drive Take a
Walk in the Rainforest Take a Walk on the Wildside Download Take A Walk
fun pages on the wild side Well, if that's the case then Take A Walk, New
York! is for you Take a walk Take in a show See a film See your stars Trace
a friend Go for a curry Read a ... Take a walk through the unconscious land
of dreams WELCOME TO Take a Walk in My Shoes,Take a Walk |
Newsletter | Contact Us @Take a Walk.com. Take a Walk Through Our
Solar System. note: This "walk through the solar system" takes about 2/3 of
a mile each way; Walk in My Shoes is an activity project that reaches across
generations take a walk kissing my stomach Walk in My Shoes is moving my
eyes walk through my eyes I just want to walk away. Which is what I'm going
to do do my task? @Subject: will do my task? Re: will do my task? Re: does
My Task Bar Cover My Question: Why does my task start after 8 am? The
program is defaulted to enter the task at my task bar thingy After a task is
executed, and flags it as completed My task is to talk about globalization and
inequality in developing countries, Define My Task This step involves two
distinct tasks: My task ... help..net/t/en/module.TaskReport.html I get a
completely different dialogue from the way I browse my task different privacy
levels with my task What's the differences is that these recommendations will
be based on ... Why should I invest my time in Task Force activities? with
associations of different file types ... with a different 3-Dimension ... A
Different Light Bookstore A Different Drum CONTENTS OF DIFFERENT
LOVING. INTERVIEWS FROM THE BOOK. BUY DIFFERENT LOVING Join
The Serve Different Campaign How We're Different from Each Other. ...
Each represents a Simple Duration difference on each different system The
idea is to increase the amount of information taken in with each glance
Professional subscriptions include your companys name in each Glance This
number is unique to each Glance session. ... Reading Groups of Words at
Each Glance Monday at a Glance Each Upward Glance Freedom hangs
proudly to bridge our expanse I "Each Peach Pear Plum"Celebrates Each
Month with Pizzazz! TO SERVE EACH ONE WE GLANCE UPON”. Summer
2000 with the full descriptions of each element START at a Glance. ... 1,600
deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic
missiles, and heavy bombers for each side START at a Glance. ...

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Trey Sager &

Thomas Comerford
Thomas Comerford is a media artist, musician, writer and educator who
resides in Chicago. His films have screened at festivals and venues which
include the Ann Arbor Film Festival and Anthology Film Archives. His
musical project, Kaspar Hauser, has released several albums and is known
to play out at sundry places in Chicago.) Trey Sager is a poet and writer in
New York. Recent work has or will appear in Fence, Insurance Magazine,
Brooklyn Stoop, Family Focus Magazine, Counterpunch and The Cafe
Review. He is the author of the chapbook Pilgrims 10 (Temporama Press--
2000).

LET TER(S) + SIG NATURE(S)

Shiitake, I
double you.
Wow,
see
quadruple
'rooms &
ate mistakes

too.
Have no fear of atoms.
No, here. Halve at

novel volume (limned) w/ abcdef-

Gee,
thanks lots.
Lot's
lost

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salt
pill:
Ur.
Are
our
pill-
ars?

Strong (or on
iron on
Orion)

Dim (rune
more on
moon)

Week (honor
owner
bonus)

-hijklmn-

"oh pee"
[cue: laugh track]
plus:
"P.U."
[cue: you pee up]
+
"why pee"
[cue: ready made]
&
"pee pee" [cue: gotta make]
we sprung a l

(spell: I-cup)
cue: rstuvwxyz.

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Mr. I.P. Daily peed his pee jays

en route to his ex-
wife's pillow
case (up 'er).

Inigo Proletariat Daily

vol. 6, no. 9

INERTIA PLAGUES DESTINY

ID P.E. DELAYED
ICHARUS PLUNGES, DIES
INTERIOR PARTICIPLES DANGLE
IDES PROVE DEADLY

Bee bee guns

poacher approaches
a sordid pistils
hunter green
see anon
tender shoots

a.m. m.o.

Snug gulls slug guns.

That's the agreemint (what the spear meant).

will you's sign language?

x........................

& in issue hear x.......................

sine and cosine her pleas.

sine qua non her peas.

You said ado,

fowl mouth, adieu.
T'was waste, mon dieu?
Upper torso fa la ti do.
Stoop now, stop newt, no
two so open. So far
so good. That is so
me. Later, dude.

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Some framer's widow E.S.T.

@8P.M.T.V.E.R.R.E.R.U.N.

Window won
often on
one Idaho
fey eye o'er
e-zee.
Wind owes us
warmer arms
armour armed
paramour
morte d'artur
[I'm part d'art.]

So grim, brother,
about a bout 'tween
Steve McQueen & Steve, my queen.
Jack's son, P., did he ref.
Skin skeins s'cold mat.
B.U.T. full: jack whizzes en matte.
A men.
Allah Mater.

Yet sol rises ouest:

Andromeda's strain
Brutus' tutu
Caesar's palace
Diogenes O.G.
Eurydice's dicey
Fortuna's gyro
Gorgeous Gorgias
Heraclitus subtle care
Icharus: Are you charred?
Jimmy the Greek
Kronos Krunch
Leucippus' sepulchre
Minos nothing
Nietzsche's Nikes
Orion's return
Pythagoras' theorem
Quotienscumque

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Ra ra ra
Solon's no loss
Thales Daily
You
Virgil's urge
Who
Xerxes xeroxes
Why, Yaldabaoth, why?
Zeno's zero

et Herr Homer's heir:

Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, polutropon os mala

polla plangcqh...

--No! You know me, gnome.

--You no name!
--Me? No one?
--Yes, at least won (this round I did).

No walls left 'cept ( ) or { } or [ ]

matter, mater, mate, mat, ma, M.
Ms. Peacock = Mr. Peacock
analogous: Clark Kent/Superman
a.k.a. übermensch
munch biscuits mit tea
(re: partee)
{re: tardy behaviour}
[re: duh]
no forms form for mensch, halber-mensch,
1/2ed by krypton halbard-wielding nihilist,
Gene Hackman, a braided Gene Hackman,
a stuffed anima.
He makes a move, he splices/slices: the
alphabet

aleph-
help.

R.I.P.
Djin "Pac-Man" Hackman
1. O.D.'d on dots

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2. 'e raced, erased (c/o Clyde)

3. Oranged

LDVIth metampsychosis

sept. seven

class of '89

--Nein, dumkopf.

Sin
cere
ly,

Laszlo
Moholy-Nagy

P.S. (Progresso Soup)

January 2000 - May 2002

Trey Sager
Thomas Comerford

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Bob BrueckL

"Black Grape Jelly" from SCREED 6

Actless 1

Obscene 1:
White frost on contorted dead leaves, and the unpredictability of abjection
decomposes the succulent distaste of manipulation swelling up as a failure
to imagine a mottled language that deactivates the piebald oralities of the
dead.

Obscene 2:
So sheath the code of being in satrap strophes precipitating chimerical
death-knells of undifferentiated husks as the stodgy are silenced to be
improbably holy, or sagacious and bardic.

Obscene 3:
What was deftly left unsaid was left by the torqued ellipse, so petty out in the
scorched pasture, back-lit only by T-shaped beams with no distinct tincture,
yet inextricably exalted in the taciturn trances of its circumvented
circumcisions.

Obscene 4:
It is entering me, the gaggle of merciless intersections, not unlike the
crooked crick down in the hollow, the wilting spasms of deified feces
creaking in the shade.

Obscene 5:
The exacerbated thrust is not entering you, but the polyglot that struts in the
wrenching shallows is.

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Obscene 6:
What you heard was the spasmodic death rattle of a vagina in the shapes of
music.

Obscene 7:
The spiral helix of the dead feels like a wooden penis around my neck,
gashed up until it enters me like a narrow viper's liver.

Obscene 8:
The mildew was sandblasted. The ambient mold was nothing but a depleted
tallow hovering like an unadored watershed wherein an inviolable kiwi is
slaughtered. It is the only kiwi around these parts: wisp spore wisp.

Obscene 9:
What is under my talons is under your skin.
I feel the flaccid afterglow of the esoteric tongue decoder.
I am a little pinkie in the paw of idle murmurs whittled down to the salty
sweat that wallows in the skies in disguise.

Obscene 10:
It languorously eludes aches' napes' lesions' obsessive contours somewhat
like a lissome reeking tooth. The transverse beams fizzle. Skewered tongues
warp the snooty shockwaves. The unscrupulous night sky winces, and all
our ilk is bashed.

Obscene 11:
The matrix is dusk. This is a question.

Obscene 12:
Uninhibited imbibition siphons off quirky arrowheads' pale limp incest-
mulching mammograms ablaze: their heads are bashed in. A glazed word in
my mouth is grazing on saliva: swallow, flush, specious, false: a spurious
tongue depressor.

Obscene 13:
Foam is never a blob overlapping upon the curves of itself -- superciliously
bushwhacked turbulence, an untenable sprinkle, execration, infrasonic
twang, the act of osculation, unhoisted pressure valves, breathing pulses of
sow bread and a monocrome dabbler in skin.

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Obscene 14:
Unpredictable piles of disgorgement descramblers are flushing trickling
tongues of fire down the loo.

Obscene 15:
What is timeless delights light's crassest impartiality.

Obscene 16:
Can you salvage the jocose plaint, the waggish oddness of a clumsily
swerving tactless cranial gaffe.

Obscene 17:
Can the permutations capitulate to gradually aggress upon the clattering
chrysoprase if the anomie aspersions are blurred and the basalt buoy is
absolutely shameless.

Obscene 19:
Are you mocking the cooing shekels that are a harbinger of the coup d'etat to
come.

Obscene 20:
Suck me off figuratively.

Obscene 21:
The drippy leak is bestirred unheard, rippling dichotomous and peripheral, a
recalcitrant dictee.

END

Actless 1

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The Donna Matrix

Hasty Pudding

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peaches

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the goat man

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deep into the woods

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LOOPPOESIA
The poetics of
redundancy
by Wilton Azevedo

Cd cover of cd rom Looppoesia 2001. Front screen

"Pick up a newspaper

Pick up a pair of scissors

Choose from the newspaper an article the size you wish to size your poem.

Cut out the article

Next cut out some words from the same article very attentively and put them
in a bag.
Shake gently.
Next pick up each piece one after another.
Copy them consciously in the order they were taken from the bag.
The poem will look like you.
Suddenly you become a far original writer with a gracious sensibility,
even though misunderstood by the public."
(Tristan Tzara)

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The first idea for the Dada movement, that one we would know later
as the Theory of Information was to question the poetic systems by the
level of noise that it could possibly generate. Thus, it was determined that
the artistic manifestation had started a new hybrid content stage; verb,
visual and sonorous, where it was doubted the frequency of a redundant or
original language, that is, poetics through the sameness and noise.

This kind of behavior caused the degree of poetic invention in the

creative area. The artists behind this Dada idea, as Hugo Ball, Tristan
Tzara and Richard Huelsembeck called their manifestation 'bacterological
order' (Teles, 1978:124), kind of a virus attack of the language in order to
unsettle the redundancy established by the sameness.

In order to support this new manifesto, and gradually increase the

dealing with random content, fruit of human language, these artists were not
able to avoid the performable character. Its great improvising impetus, due
to the chaos generated through the intersemiotic of languages and
destabilization caused by its poetic and lack of equilibrium at the time of
creating a new language generated from its hybrid aspect, made Tristan
Tzara himself in 'The thought is made in the mouth' gave a recipe on how to
build a dada poem, in other words, he taught how to create noises.

Looppoesia - I. Wilton Azevedo. 2001.

Norbert Wiener the founder of Theory of Information believed that our

society was threatened by entropy disorder which culminated with a
comparison of his thesis to the devil´s action (Breton, 1992:29). There is a
first reading presented by Saint Augustine that is originated from the idea of
Imperfection; the second is that of the perverse devil, the one who spreads
disorder and confusion. The entropy that man generates 'is originated from a

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malignant process', it turns the work of communication into a manner to

promote order assaulting disorder 'originated by Man and Evil that nature
carries in itself'.

Communication would be connected to the conception of existence

of natural and artificial phenomena, and in this sense we would understand
the mechanisms used by some artists from the last century better, the one
of always being directing themselves to noise, even though they knew that
the technological apparatus - the machines -would have been participating
in the fight against entropy since the industrial revolution.

In doing so, languages produced by machines should communicate

among themselves through an appropriate language. It is exactly this
concept that makes the Theory of Communication reach the idea of
communication among machines. In this case, the machines are regarded
as live organisms therefore they coulld also contribute to the increasing of
entropy. "This belief in the possibility that machines could become
'intelligent' will be one of the essential aspects of the creative myth of our
modernity". (Breton, 1992:53)

Having considered the experiments in art and poetry, we were led to

consider exactly the opposite. Once a constituted language is programmed
by information nets, it looks as it is self-regulated maintaining a content
related to redundancy in itself. In these terms, George Balandier states that
considering a 'society of communication', is redundant.

Taking into account that all the signs communicate among

themselves, that is, that there is meaning in everything, we start living a true
overdose of
messages lacking
time and space to
enquire their
verbal-analytical, or
imagistic or
sonorous related to
received
messages. We only
know that we
receive them and
we use the act of
clicking as a way of
'interacting'.

The digital
means with their rhizomatic nets recover this multidimensional structure - the
hyperdesign - and we reach a writing stage but this time in a hybrid way,
where verb, image and sound are produced at the same time numerically

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speaking.

All these changes in the sense of producing languages from a

program software - started to establish a new posture concerning the
'reading' concept. The digital support is not the first among several different
supports to cause alterations in cultural aspects of humanity, the writings
ever since their emerging have been suffering considerable changes in their
material, (Healey, 1996:257) "Many things depended on the availability of
the existent local materials. In Egypt, the papyrus was the typical material for
many purposes. In Mesopotamia, raw clay was used and dried under the
sun or cooked afterwards. Public monuments in both regions were usually
made from stone."

As a huge symbolic storage, programs act in their most known aseptic

form, it is in this sense that all the programming ends up characterizing a
high standard of redundancy, repeating to the world what exists a priori in
our cognition, reproducing in these technological apparatuses, a copy -
facsimile - that favors the redundancy through sequences of numerical
instructions, automatizing a notation of numerical model in the form of
writing. It is a moment where it is noticed the use of mental models, an icon,
that in simulating terms, what is considered double acts as an index of
human knowledge, "can we conceive the possibility of thinking the
movement without imagining something from the moving ? According to
Pierce, every argumentation uses the icon inspection (that we could
translate as the simulation of mental models" (Levy apud. Peirce; 1998:121)

Looppoesia - Amor. Wilton

Azevedo. 2001.

From the
idea of simulating
models,
LOOPOESIA is
transformed into a
poetic experiment
that aims to
establish the noises
of these models
and the changes of
image meanings,
sounds and words,
arousing the possibility of emerging several different poems inside the same
sign collage, as it was kind of an ideogram that we know from the ancient
writings as Egyptian hieoroglyphics, and so the cuneiforms, "The ideogram

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extends the idea of interface called icon and that is all". It is interesting to
observe that a scripture - a program - is nothing but an interface, that is, a
relationship between an entity and another, in LOOPOESIA, the meaning
changes between the speaker and the receiver and the level of interface
generated through 'redundant entropy', whether we should call it this way.

Any language system that operates through redundancy are

symbols that represent categories, referring to icons on a computer screen,
they are writing access. At this moment, Pierre Levy points the advantages
of the animated images over the alphabetical writing (Levy, 1998: 162-3)

As categories, we can organize them as linear or non-linear diagrams

as they become even more than semantical nets but a rhizomatous net,
nonlinear, kind of a labyrinth where one can navigate in diagrams creating
'intermediarity' relations. (Ta Metaxu), (Quéau, 1989)
There is no language production without the idea of model and the
infographic images leave the metaphor spheres and enter decisively into the
world of copy and redundancy. The verbal, visual and sonorous languages
are always operating on the limit of representation through repetition, always
proposing analogies and metaphors in the context of words and images.
"The metaphor can explain, sometimes with much light but it lacks true
capacity of declination. It always represents a not so appropriate character."
(Quéau, 1995: 35). As for the model, it can be experimented proving its
internal coherence always inserted in a real context.

Words, images and sounds in a virtual environment are nevertheless

an interface -'intermediarity' - a new relationship between gesture and
concept. "The virtual image is converted into an exploratory 'place' but this
place is not a pure 'space' or a priori a condition of the world experience, as
it was for Kant (…) It is the object of the experience indeed, it constitutes
itself as a tissue and it is defined accurately. This place can be considered
an 'image' and kind of a symptom of a symbolic model from which it is
originated. It is the experiment selfsame of this space that allows the
remounting of its source of legibility…" (Quéau, 1995:35)

This 'intermediarity' is the result of our semiotic connection with the

world of languages since it is well-known that what we know, what we see,
what we hear and what we write occur not as we were raised in a
communicative ditch, our floodgates operate through cognition, we are in
constant conditions of cognitive intermediarity updating the multiple
selections that the world of phenomena imposes us to.

"The human cognitive systems can transfer to the computer the

task of building and updating representations that they should elaborate
with the few resources of its operational memory or the rudimental and
stable representations from paper and pencil." (Levy, 1998:165)

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Thus, we can state that the cognitive relations used for the reflection
acquisition changed. The memory today is not only human but an
interdisciplinary attitude that joins entities as human beings and machines
put together in access nets through interfaces. "The memory for St.
Augustine, is the first reality of the spirit and from which thinking and wishing
are originated therefore it constitutes the image of God Father from whom
the Verb and Holy spirit proceed." (Launand, 1998:9)

The approximation of codes has always emphasized the

correspondence among the verbal, visual and sonorous form, this
correspondence "hasn´t resulted in convictions" (Oliveira, 1999:12) but it
deals on how the poetics in these supports occurs immediately in a hybrid
form, "plastic creation - poetics".

It is in the inner view of this new virtual environment that a work as

LOOPOESIA starts to configure a new temporal and spatial bound notion,
working animated images lasting 8 seconds at most within a 0,001 speed
each frame, and at this moment the poetics of redundancy takes place. "The
form of the poetic text is unique. It is a drawing itself, it shows itself in verse,
it configures a new space on the parchment, on the page or on the screen
(…) , searching and juxtaposing itself. The first theorists noticed this
collusion of form and codes." (Oliveira, 1999:12).

The poetic experiments in digital support more and more will have the
responsibility of questioning their innovations through their programmed
stages. Questioning the laws that preserve these redundant stages as a
redundant aesthetics becomes a work that unifies the artistic production and
the scientific one definitely: "In the succeeding face, the artistic production
suffers a radical transformation; it doesn´t deal exclusively in transmitting a
conventional and finished work elsewhere, and sending it in a naïve and
inconsiderate way to another medium nor even obtaining from it a new form
of diverse spectacle, activating the specific possibilities of the transmission
channel; on the contrary, it deals with the creation of an intentional work
exclusively dedicated to the transmission, that is, the one of making some
aesthetical products with the same linguistic resources of those used in the
communicational technologies on which they are transmitted and they use
the technological specificity of the channels as its expressive matter."
(Costa, 1997:30)]

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Looppoesia - Front Screen. Wilton Azevedo. 2001.

All in all, LOOPOESIA can be considered a synthesis of the culture of

the look, writing and the sound where these marks of redundancy are
transformed into poetry and they emit their redundant signal towards the
future loaded with imagetic canons, true beings that make our senses move.

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Paper translated into English by Vera L. Harabagi Hanna

Bibliography
Besançon, Alain. A Imagem Proibida. Uma História Natural da
Iconoclastia. Rio de Janeiro; Bertrand Brasil, 1997.

Breton, Philippe. A Utopia da Comunicação. Éditions La

Découverte. Instituto Piaget. Lisboa. 1992.

Costa, Mario. O Sublime Tecnologico. Trad. Dion Davi Macedo. São

Paulo. Experimento, 1997.

Hooker, J. T. (introdução). Lendo o Passado: A História da Escrita

Antiga do Cuneiforme ao Alfabeto, São Paulo: Editora da
Universidade de São Paulo, Companhia Melhoramentos,1996.

Lauand, Luiz Jean (org.). Cultura e Educação na Idade Média. São

Paulo, Martins Fontes, 1998.

Lévy, Pierre. A Ideografia Dinâmica. Rumo a uma imaginação

artificial?. Edições Loyola, São Paulo, Brasil, 1998.

Mendonça Teles, Gilberto. Vanguarda Européia e Modernismo

Brasileiro. Editora Vozes, 5° Edição. Petropólis. 1978.

Oliveira, Valdevino Soares de. Poesia e Pintura Um Diálogo em três

Dimensões, São Paulo, Fundação Editora da UNESP (FEU),1999.

Quéau, Philippe. Lo Virtual, Virtudes y Vértigos, Ediciones Paidós

Ibérica, 1º edición, 1995.

______________ METAXU, Théorie de L´art Intermédiaire.

Collecion Milieux Editions Champ Vallon. Seyssel. 1989.

www.wiltonazevedo.com.br - info@wiltonazevedo.com.br

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an.online.journal.of.voice

2003 Compendium PE (Premium Edition)

Winter 2003

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 79
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B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 80
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Poetry
Steve Timm
sheila e. murphy
W.B. Keckler
Michael Ruby
Christopher Janke
Duane Esposito
Ben Lyle Bedard
theodore knapsack
Jukka-Pekka Kervinen
Doug Draime
Jorge Lucio de Campos
John G. Hall
Michael Farrell
Harriet Zinnes
Chris Stroffolino
Gerburg Garmann
Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino
Gordon Hadfield
Lev Rubinstein Translated from the Russian
by Philip Metres and Tatiana Tulchinsky

New Media

August Highland // HTML Poetry

From August Highland To Geoffrey Gatza. #0001

Kevin Hehir // MP3 Sound Poetry

Truth

Paul Eric Kungar // Image Poetry

Wet Dream Sequence

Dodi Navidig // Flash Poetry

All we need in this life

Geoffrey Gatza // HTML series

What's Good for the Goose: Thanksgiving 2003

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B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 82
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Steve Timm
These four pieces are from an extended work called Bout. Steve teaches English
as a second language at U. of Wisconsin in Madison. He has or will have poems in
Moria, Xstream, Antennae, and Word For/Word.

WHAT DAFT CRAP IS THIS

What back stain toward what view inserted in what abandoned of ear
miraging what snapless shot of clatter even stumble even wanscreamed what
make restart what end what choiceless fill of time when what blank where
daft in scope of back-when daft in subject object daft in verbs gotten nodded
daft in starts ends risings serially daft in numbers fingered daft in figurably
daft in that which once was winks daft in contentedly contented content of
crap as though step forth in crap as though set crap as though arroweds to
turn on crap as though 3 dimensions of crap as though taste buds crap as
though figurines in origami diorama nightmare panopticonical crap as
though 2 part harmony crap as though sing along to crap as though
gregariously unique crap as though there’s enough crap is but a scanner is
yet some fuckpuzzle is but andly frothily is yet come and see the show is but
too funny yes bonded is yet henced as weld of bumper this wooorld this
toupee this frozen this way this over there this scar staple clean this system
fogey certain cavil drape this this-with-its-name-like like as likely not as this
not like them this he not her like this like us much as me as not him you
their though also quite like this stem thwart rose comma this hook of page
you with me are you again again again again again this hope sudden of
listened sounded wound traffic in actual side show return this each say

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PLITIKLE CLAM (watching michael haneke’s code unknown)

what nerve not knowing what one is doing & then doing it & then to say one
knows

believe me stop stop please let us plead out our true face mean do want nor
true expression be what’s
what beet chewing melodies what hasp fart rues’ll came
up grunt or illegible that breath so came a direction as good as any up cuz
one can bleev ups next sky

frantic yes
(s)pla(’)in(’) any planer
uld pref not encirc
they hatch close as
’romist

side down of boy a lot beat them no choice on him brought upon took it
home to a power

she weeps behind orange what more ethicle livrance

from side
a proud as you wants him
where of his could possibly
these tears
her mute him illness
his mobile to pull how to cut the
wonderful has that is places some know used lent once you called me yes?
home? he is

those big trucks with truck sounds & the grandmother nigh invisible as the
wind lifts sand to be wind sand
Maria likely denim they in hug & once in a
she’s ironing & tr
a man
in

that language again

I am I coping
if one cannot hear
(the words one can’t one can’t presume
tho a could & then such old where as loss as unneeded unself as though
as well as sigh or

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chugged wine least or most or well as much as anyway anyway those perfect
tank tops

chuck have respect for harping father mention stop jabbering that that’s
were there are beautiful very good
i could backfill
gave it to lively like it no chairs delusions if she’ll said be
better better lots this does not finished to make says takes they don’t can
have
red on top
bottom blue these drums under sticks kids hold knowing each faint fragment
of beat in rank unison

that opener man of mail he crumps handsome strung lights not lighted & a
phone of splain as before break of always splanting voice good as any to be
come up with

this stretch of moment

sudden time
just like lips wanted
she
okay okay the bath
doesn’t me fro

& who’ll answer & there

you
a road & dust made of
it is europe this other say
watchful but unloads
he’s walking way from & that dark slot of entrance exit the kid from
in orange & on it & away
rev whine (erance, really
the heating work come to music superb
room provides very pretty though there walled cealed hold on hear the
amazing behind this door a copy I do
the lighter doesn’t
over more jabber
her fa
during the pan
ke 4
action

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meters and hedges see privacy in excellent varnished the heating wish you
the what was the music a superb paneling
forking hay guys & cows’ asses those swishing tails though
not all some hang limp our boy is a sinew
& now let one just

damper son damper sun hope is a translation need a filter then of now &
back if there famous work to make sound
the throat discoops at wan rate
you surety
seasnl
termath just
as so as just & so skewed as
& if described
watcheder
stung blanch the first
direction is up that is premediated & the missing tuh of tut the amplest
destiner franks a ward or so even just a preposition it’s of meal & you know
pang
draggle
smile of scour that
jolesses that emerge
corroborator ensteepled
tease merchant waistline I’m more
cozened as a
steroid the blank muscle look come for
now just to choose letters well phones
buh lup ih
puh suh owe’ll duh
rah ih veh er tay x muh ee thuh ay en kuhs
that very dapple the water
rearrays to an i sprayx for

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sad demeaned places

deported still here

the receiver shares its (hers

i’m sample
say not
ok next prayer

water turned blue

place of else

frantic turn
nothing
it all of

happen trace
(see world, after

all

jerked as
though by

i call it

is all so fast

fasted for
such simple derivation

a spell a comb makes

just possible
barely not

for you i

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EXPECTORATION COUNTEREXPECTORATION

thats it isnt it thats it. what it is it is it. whatever it not what it whatever it
thats it isnt isnt it is that whatever what it is.

candy is a nickname. is penny. candy is is penny. candace penance. candor

pennants canned as. waving gaily waving daily bracing wind after all so
waving waving bye bye candy bye bye penny.

you should know. i do. you should know i do.

now i leave my chest so deep. you should know. now i achieve eyelids do
seep. your shoulder now. sewed on brings a new day. you should happy.
bow downed dew bray blue grass. you should occur daiquiri. take cure place
pure cane bliss.

viz topple wand. is this. when this is this wand topple to viz if listen with if
wished glisten if gladden. is is after all is is. all is after after. some sang
chump change wand for. topple for wand viz prettyflag sky isnt it after all
you should know or wand for this isnt this. thanks thanks.

kissy better wand kissy better. right better better right kiss better better wand
strong hand. strong wand hand kiss kiss better hand. handy hand wand to
kiss hand. wandy kiss hand handy. kissy kissy handy wandy. wavy flaggy
sky all wandy after candy after penny. viz it isnt it is viz. viz what viz viz
viz wand viz hand viz hand topple happy currency pretty wave hand wand
kiss kiss.

better all better unbow. take lip sip. brow with hand better sweets. you
should know your helmet.

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CLING OF THE CLANKENPHILE

Against sibilants a such

Windows demand emend
At one
Thus wind’ll tack ya
Weight on the word
The-ward i trend a cope (cf. the japanese student who dictionerred into
“monochrome”
for ‘blackandwhit’)
To hell pew a world a any good this fornithing
Soak loess salve a more
Eel thank you
You you, ya
Epidemis square roof qua wrangle
Amid a dark twould tack ya
I’s are us
Spent him money longed for loantressed lopescape

Again such a sizzle thru the opened amen

Too close less itch utter come forth
Assyrian as seas in joliet
Firt fale teep annote
Jing ching tsing dzing a pfing pour earth ought
One perked as tumor
A loan with a heart in ’s wound
Where the sleeve went bent
& they hey sorrow nonny
broke a bankless water
sumped thin rockted forth

Wee foundling sworce

Isso unfinishablest
Bliss shush swish chirrup soilslush flash fists

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W.B. Keckler
My most recent book, Sanskrit of the Body, won in the Natl. Poetry Series ('02) and
is just out through Penguin. New work can be found in mags online and elsewhere,
including Alterran Poetry Assemblage, Shampoo, Detroit Dispatch. He has
recently finished "Some Things Which Used to Make Me Salivate" and is
completing "My Husband, the Elegist."

JAPANESE CINEMA

The obscure "with" or width

of the atmosphere--the social
confusion or bewilderment
may be trick photography, mind embraces.

A coastal light seen in fog

is the more urgent problem
in that its sleeplessness will soon be general
throughout nature. Highway becomes cliff.
Where two sounds converge
as the lovers' insomnia, streetlights
in a Japanese movie--driving
is filmed this sinuous,
following the flight from concentration
into the lower ground
blurred or obscured, called "story"
for want of a feeble end-point
you rejected. You think the fog
may be deflecting the mountain,
unglimpsed.

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TEN POEMS FOR CHRISTOPHER SMART AND HIS CAT

1.

A riot, tabled it
and fought sunset
into submission (dark
hills) endless xeroxes
where we fidgeted;
pressing new buttons
for answers, orgasms,
whatever-we-needed
asleep in its cave:
lethargic beast, onus
longer than children
hang around the house,
eat everything in sight,
leave skin downstairs.

2.

Bright skim of light,

dragonfly intellect
pursuing small meal
through scrim-nets.
Is that you standing
under the eaves, opting
for optics that drag
the world, without
clean existence? It's
clearly medieval, maybe
home-spun, the way
everyone feared it.
Who dropped the subject
with aplomb, leaden?

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 91
92

3.

Who leapt the world,

night-cursor, cloven
stone of the tomb
where waves (sounds)
beat back the night.
A mantis poses, its
clean-cut shadow cools
(beetle below). Ego
whims drifting clouds
paint lakes. Engines
stall and sleep enters
tiny skulls, like rootlets.
We should look "under"
if we want wound bodies.

4.

Compressed details, ear

spiral hearkens to space's
unseen lean. Talons rip
talents. Mice scuttle.
Blue openings are cool.
Rose springs are labial,
blown creams. Walls fall
into sweeping silence. No
check is best. Eat dirt
glints. Toward town,
echoes increase, factories
exploding calmly. Worms
undermine earth, not
heaven. Heaving chest
of all. Awful.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 92
93

5.

Forms seductive, eaten

erosion. I-Ching beater
clicking along a cursor,
wind. And yellow-lit
screens. Trauma bends
to suit your schedule
when Moon is self-inflicted,
shivering on pewter shoals.
Agonies, innumerable hum
of windows. City blesses
engines, take-offs every
fifteen minutes. Forests
fall into lines. Paper
hoards white, ammonite energy.

6.

Didn't you clasp dawn

with its pearl anomie once,
blush blue in old cellars?
Another autumn burnishes
gilt over autos, spills
light over horizons, away.
Nothing comes. Should we
scrape artificial bones
or sound alarms? Matter
is full of holes like
Swiss cheese. Could we
drive through? Yogis
smile on the plane's wings.
We're going down. Mute.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 93
94

7.

Well-meaning words sift

reality, just ore. Alchemy
of poetry, but the divine
(as gold) can't be made cheaply.
Only found. Forests of
holes we walk through,
telling stories. Static
of leaves. Quick runners
walk across the water on stilts
they've only borrowed.
We float on luminous sea
of kilobytes (light swans).
Better to leave each page
with a lasting bow. Glass.

8.

Revisions fool. No such

animal to tame. Disappear
into the next room. It's
(nice) chameleons on ice,
very polite. Trammeled in
neural nets of device,
backpedaling bikes to
turn time against itself.
Sound's urns. Frost leaves,
a few crystals in the bottom,
glint-dead dragonfly. Sun's
bollixed. Fish swim below
panes. Everything will
disappear in a flash.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 94
95

9.

Words are dominoes.

The truth flew out,
large as a cormorant.
You ate sorbet, blushed
like a guard flashed tits
in the Louvre. Spoon
some more meaning out
this cracked window.
"I couldn't eat one more
syllable!" Caloric ex-
cess to brain's heat.
Don't like leaving poems
alone like that...they
cluster like dinosaurs.

10.

Wavy surface to this water

distorted it. What then
is "it?" The reflex to
cover a hole (or fill
earth. Meaning troublous
absence festered there.
It should be wound as
a conch or brain, not
wound that never heals,
heels. Let it be (un-
fill-in-the-blank) forever.
Your head needn't be split
because Chaucer merely wants
to "ax you something."

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 95
96

3 LINKED RENGA FOR IZUBUCHI

Carnassial face hidden in intersecting lines

of point of human pigment

Milling cutters in the Malevich

Bellona holding an optical illusion

The fugal brain equates with mental health

here where the osprey is emptied
of Aeschylus

There is nothing akin to skin, it skews

how you broke a knuckle rapping

on the ancient door.

We gave a name. The ocean

The wire grids in a child's toy

awakening without your lover

Or Aeschylus trying to get away from literature

his epitaph alluded only to a soldier.

The body's promiscuity will never match the mind's

Source of much spiritual ruin

Burroughs rhapsodic on Genet's name

continually being born

To nest but where?

O the data-transfer-rate of a dragonfly

that somehow found its way into the Uffizi

Pronouns for maintenance

"In evolutionary terms, this is called the Mullerian..."

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 96
97

This is the 1950s

presided over by a leaning image

The golden skewering of the atom

Wallace Stevens holding Descartes' mind

in the palm of his thick hand

We are moved by the dead's avarice

O, My Husband the Elegist

you are not here to see the nothingness crawl fluorescent as
nightsurf

Benetton ad featuring Fayyum mummies

Beautiful adolescents below glass

Veneer, Conchoidal

Franz Kline, Frank O'Hara

Snow falls through the branches of Hartford

"like eyesight fallen brightly to earth"

through the carnassial faces of dogs running

Jackson Pollock turns toward the barn in a blizzard

Lee Krasner yells out a grocery list

with a corkscrew twang

Of Hokusai's favorite brush.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 97
98

sheila e. murphy
Sheila Murphy's book manuscript Letters to Unfinished J. was selected in this
year's open poetry competition sponsored by Sun & Moon Press, and will be
published by Sun & Moon. Falling in Love Falling in Love With You Syntax:
Selected and New Poems has just been released by Potes & Poets Press. Recent
works include A Clove of Gender (Stride Press, 1995). Murphy's work has been
widely anthologized, most recently in Fever Dreams: Contemporary Arizona Poetry
(The University of Arizona Press, 1997) and The Gertrude Stein Awards in
Contemporary Poetry (Sun & Moon Press, 1994, 1995). The Contemporary
Authors Autobiography Series recently brought out an autobiography of Sheila E.
Murphy, including photographs of Murphy with family and friends. Sheila Murphy
co-founded with Beverly Carver and continues to coordinate the Scottsdale Center
for the Arts Poetry Series, now in its eleventh season. Murphy is President of the
management consulting firm Sheila Murphy Associates. Since 1976, she has made
Phoenix, Arizona, her home.

lavabo

unstain infection
unsustain refraction
brillo what you will
long lace of willow
near a face estranged
from the ’lastic sprigs
of lavender one moment
at a notice within
sight to slight

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 98
99

in mem
or
i am

"ing"
ger
w
rote
to
me

s
till
re
member
how
he
other
s

f
rom
w
here
he
is

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 99
100

saline

dinero's velvet in a set especially

factor analysand quotes nerves
what's what figures in to the discussion of spaniels
there is no renegade delirium when pouncing
she felt none of the fun in terms
of anybody's terms expecting to be central
each looked several ways not at her
presumptive north already crowded
with stampedicures and egos the color
of an all-white rainbow

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 100
101

via -bolic

could once limn through

a quinced seasoning
the generous pressed kisses’
compact wrapping as if overt
inertia post-taste
snakes a learning child
past disassembly of
alt- stairlight feathered with
electric tact
walled into pull a way
to take a chord to black
one keels over the down be
neath awaiting touches on
a gatherish new sigh-light

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 101
102

interrogation point

la langue la langue why hast thou

(pre)emp t(i)ed moi
in sync guesses ply their trade
me a deuce I'll snip the asp
iri n north er ly in tactile whiffance
give me an a-
frame lame minus teak
I'll blithe the cursor “twast”
t his whirled s lumber is an islet
and the jury
is pursuable endorphist twang
are you in t her e
maybe
may
be logging out
to scratch the vial it's late
it's latter
it is late come
gather

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 102
103

Michael Ruby
Ruby lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and work as a journalist. His first book of
poems, At an Intersection, was published by Alef Books in New York last year. A
long poem, "Wave Talk," appeared this past winter in syllogism. Keep an eye out
for new work in Lost & Found Times in Columbus and in the e-zines: Poethia,
Mudlark, xStream, Aught, Big Bridge, La Petite Zine, Sidereality and Shampoo.

FATALITY

We, ha, fought the menstruation

Softened the puke
That didn’t work out on Sanders
Ice cream wasn’t meant to be handsome
Or historical we might have been
How many times the talk
Did we actually see firkins
Each other penultimate
Since that Christmas in the bark
25 years for good and evil
You were there prepositional
And I was here ampersand
The days we curbed the preciosity
Pannicled the Santander
Otherwise mesmerized the Virgin
Day after day omniscient
Elevator man and negligible
Car ride to the wedding
I mean funeral, piano and window
And all, pre-programmed perhaps
But not by God—

You know, Frankenstein sacked Rome

It doesn’t matter which troglodyte
Pee pond or the lack thereof
To profess was never that important
Ancient history parks on top
Something durable and pert
I got over the soporific noggin
The lost laughter didn’t mean much
Even then on the cold blue deck
One of many Mauritanias
Lusitanias and Cuban cigars
To pass out of the empyrean
My life and later everyone’s best taste

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 103
104

They stand and talk and eat beyond the doorway, always a doorway. These
people, these people I cared about long ago, wore elephant masks.

In that sense, we marked Rotterdam with our fluids, explicated the negative
hacienda and otherwise stormed the Bastille of our pasts. We took no for an answer.

Perhaps it’s wrong to say the stork won’t go anywhere. Perhaps it’s wrong to
say the soda error doesn’t mean anything, just as the lemon feathers don’t.

We have an exhibit, the descendants of a forgotten couple.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 104
105

Fatality is an out of control seven part

crop dusted parched fairway furbelowed
long and short top to bottom brotherhood of
selfish
seminarian Transnistrian mainframe
all along and mystified
body
of Christ body of vice sensitivity
for our maverick unsavory plastic
car accident pancreatic cancer emanations
of a pragmatic rhapsody a full bodied
ragged token loose devil imbroglio
solvent
body of the Sierra
Madre
bold and true precise and smelly mesmerized
and rabbity and laminated and every way
a pork bellied singing leeward
opposite field in the dark inside the park
exhaled fired up transmigrated
infidel sappy story long and short
hostile nominal grinding
emanation regulated ammunition
doorway to the final frigid
body

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 105
106

Fatality is a person
a soluble precision
double toothed

Fatality is a person
to rack the laughter
practice prescient
alphabet juice
peanut butter
and jelly sandwich
you know hombre
what I’m saying

Fatality is a person
uncontrolled vomit
plastic mouthwash
shit fuck

Fatality is a person
whowherewhenwhyhow
we’re in business here
blinkered breathing
forked famous
echolalia glossalalia

Fatality is a person
bringing me soup
I don’t know what to say
Yes isn’t no
Dark isn’t light
The price of cameras
counteracts the presence
of elephant skins
and backs the whole—

Fatality is a person
for friendly unnecessary
memory of dingy stairs
false predictions came true
true predictions came false
O small-time big-time

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 106
107

Fatality is a picture on the wall

Paul and Saul
Mama
Practice makes perfect
Princes dip in the sauce

& a little bird

above Grandma’s chair

a rare heartbeat

and a hootenanny
What we’re seeing
Ecclesiastical Transcendental
Inopportune perhaps Impecunious

O chocolate honey-dipped
His friend, the president
Smiles on a lack of sunlight
First in flight
First in sight

Negligence can’t interfere

With plastic risers laughable pies
And so Happy 70th birthday
Dawn practices scales
Thralldom
To take Suzy
To the illogical conclusion

Turned out to be the last On the watch

On the shower
& the horse pulls the basket
& thread

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 107
108

Fatality is a picture on the wall

A hall in the House of Horrors
A palpable intangible sizzling
To practice elementary implications

Fatality is a picture on the wall

Eyes closed
To rest
And houses cold

Fatality is a picture on the wall

A fork in the lozenge
Plastic coating on the trench
Method in madness
Sap in practice
What we see in this first and most promising retreat

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 108
109

FATALISM

The day lost its brick for existing

To process hard allegations of fact

To profess without talking levels of present
Lefthanded imaging systems

The muse
Apprehends with something more Plutonic
Something musculoskeletal in demands for tor

Don’t listen too well to the eleven disciples

Of Seagate and prosperous Parkinson’s
Of the loose elemental infrastructure

Don’t mark loss to proud lather

Passion for force field emetic
Evidence

Evidence of everyday
Evidence of eleven
Evidence of marked Friday sermon seeker
Processed fork and all-around levelheaded prostitution even

Don’t stop drawers lawyers

The heart places coins on hard

Lofts ice around lawnmowers to train
The point pleases certainty if not hobby
Argues against pendulous eager Trocadero

Praise passages offstream

Seeps

Be leave

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 109
110

Christopher Janke
Poems have appeared in Harper's, Ploughshares, Verse, Poetry International, the
New Orleans Review and about 20 other journals. Currently live in Western
Massachusetts, not too far from a Ms. Pac Man machine (genuine old-school
version). And I live just above this laundromat I recently bought. It has a website,
but I'm not sure why: www.suzeesthirdstlaundry.com. Janke is Senior Editor @
Slope www.slope.org

psalm of breath

into this and out

of the smell

of honey

in, out, i am

exhaled

god coughs

in a field

you are the bee

he is chasing

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 110
111

Psalm 3: The Temple

This psalm has crawled beneath the house,

maybe to whistle.

Are you whistling too?

Or are you carving hieroglyphs

into your arm? Are you sending your

arm to the arm museum?

Will you take up a blue tarp

and wave it? All noise

comes from somewhere.

Your voice. Where did it become

a train out of a mouth.

I can't hear you

unless I'm up against your lips.

Insect

caught in my teeth.
You tear me apart

like biology,
those worms.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 111
112

_Structure of the Embryonic Rat Brain 3_

To the harmonics of alleys and the ringing in the ears and the particular
cage of the self made of glass and woven wire and buttressed by sinews
against the fish in the teeth and the arms and the ropes and doom and the
warm fire at the crack of doom where a man paces a submarine on an ocean
floor with an anxiety that is his precious vertigo though he has nowhere any
further to fall but toward the sensation of the lacuna deep within.

To walk into rooms and stare at a corner one hundred times, to vagrancy, to
soul-unfixed by clamp or hanger or rabbets or tied with silk sheets at the
inside of the knees. To extrusions of the extranatural-debt, sport, and
fleur-de-lys, to paisley and to the grand and golden ameoba embossed and
put atop a castle, to rock, stick, and gizzard, to the crowbar pinging against
the side, swaying like a man hung by the neck from a scaffolding by another
man, one who scrutinized and squinted and gazed lovingly at every
persuasion of rope, poured himself over rope with his deepest eye, his whole
self thrown into hemp and cotton and silk, into waxen, polyester, and tar-
filled.

What infinitely wise and eyeless man too fat to fit down the soup aisle.
What architect of a coup who must now buy gloves. What congress of poets
mistakenly clogging the subways with tuna fish. What deer pushing her snout
into yellow leaves.

The gimbals dislodged, a spyglass and a knife, the giddyap and the dancing
of the furiant, the prayer of an evil man in the year of jubilee while he forgives
a debt and causes the blindness of an entire tribe, what of his hunch, his
instrument board, his indestructible sense of the many knots with the name
'cat' in them, what of my unhooked ligature, my too-tight jackboot, is this the
knife wielded in the boardroom, the cut of habitual introspection, is this a
woman concluding in defacto that something must be done and is she
striking the mailman with a switch or spraying poison on the mealy worms or
just digging within herself and beginning to divide because she knows only
that she must decide and she does so-speciously or entirely truly in line with
a sense of the common, for she must push me ahead for I have opened a
fish to distinguish between heart and liver and head, I have abused process
or presence, abused substance or self, and what do I have when I am plain
or jejuned and inadvertantly nixed or gloriously chosen and nipped.

For the phrenologist on the top of the world scouring the surface for pure
water for his throat, for a way to carve, a way to go, shall you write a
constitution or take delight in a banker or carry one above your head, is
your stunting from your own hand, should you build the Hoover Dam,
become strong and phlegmatic, make a bolo out of your own choosing or
craft a teleological talisman to hang around your neck. The crux of a
mammal, the ankle of a moment, the echo of a ping and its harmonies
imagined by wolves and prisoners in black skull caps, and the sound of men
burying children on a hill.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 112
113

The bomber confused, is this the right house, the right town, the right
lover, the right body, the right head, are you the right person, do I weep
over you or you over me or we over this miracle obsequious this common
cliché over the heartbreak apparent and imminent and glowing quotidian, the
shining of a buckle of a belt in the middle of a street under an unremarkable
evening with motors humming and fingers twitching on devices and three dogs
nearby out of one another's sights and can we see them slowly
sniffing at the air for an aromatic path for a sign one sign any sign at
all.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 113
114

_Structure of the Embryonic Rat Brain 5_

In the beginning was the rat and the rat was with god and the rat was god
and the rat layed itself down to be picked at by onions. For the end or
there is no end, or for the man with no description for he is not a bear and
is not lipstick and is not the regularity of nature nor the fundamental
pillar of all creation swinging from the stars or shaped like a curlicue.

Deeply prejudiced but gentle rat. Legislative rat. Rat beginning and ending
with a bang. The lord rat running from our eating of him as he hurls all
things towards their inestimable nothings, towards miracle somethings, into
miracle peristalsis, miracle throat, towards Sam Dordoni in the belly of a
rat. Glory be to the gravitron, to the rubber-slinged and soulful. Glory to
the beard. We've come here to contemplate one life, with the Lord our rat
sitting in his own stomach and chasing his tail, in a hall of mirrors in
tactile 3D where you can fall into the mouth of a reflection and find deep
inside another one to fall into. At the bottom of the mouth is another
mouth.

For the word that changes one life.

For slim chance. For our slim chance. For the clothes in my closet to which
I would set fire if I dared, to what you know that you will never tell
another, for your shoes, the ones you are wearing or the ones you will wear
tomorrow, and for seeing them in your mind as if they were an inch in front
of your eyes, their eye-holes and blotch-stained laces, for what are the
eyes that come out of nothing, like waking in a room at dusk and not knowing
anything that has ever come before.

For asking not how did I get here but for saying dear creation of nothing
dear in and of itself dear miracle beyond that which I can withstand, dear
rat am I a fake, a faux foe, I have thrust my arm into my chest and found
there is nothing to touch, nothing to feel, no jawbone and no blue man
humming. For essential to the very nature of all things are some 13 impalers
and their slicked-back appearance. Is this mundus sensibilis the beginning
of the causality, the substratum of the thinking self, the destruction of
possibility, for there is a number that begins with a one and has 32 zeros
and it is the temperature above which there can be no rat, and yet for me to
be saying this here and now, there must have been a rat the size of a
babytooth compressed into infinite farenheit degrees. For I am crouched in
my closet and I have lit a candle and I am speaking to my limbs which have
cast a shadow over the prairie like a mountain that wants only flatness and
I am saying, right now, I'm saying: we're all here. Now what do we do.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 114
115

_Composition_

I am a stream
filled with odd-shaped fish,
laying odd-shaped eggs-
to be a glass knocked from a table
is to be wonderful,
and solipsistic, which is
what it takes to get by,
or so a woman once told me,
before she tamed a tornado
and told me that light always comes
from a middle, not from an end,
and I was a hand outstretched,
hard against the side of a well,
trying to press but slipping
into a rain of flowers and knives.
I drew infinity's portrait; I'd learned
with an ordinary set of numbers,
the ones on the fridges of America,
I'd learned by learning to scribble
the soul of the blue jay
and the crunch of the boxing glove,
but I am not the body,
I am the witness.
So I witness
myself in love
and wish I were him.
I use my five senses, but
not one of them can count,
so: words. They are a blindness that strikes,
a card trick that never works,
the rag between lips, a full stop,
a ladybug frozen to the sill,
the tantrum, the dream, the uninvited,
the guests who knock out the host,
my arm in the bucket of berries,
my claw-and-strawberry hand.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 115
116

_The Madder The Poplar_

and the design of design?

the leg of this cricket-its beetle-steeled hinges

and crisp highstep-
the way it is so vulnerable to being

-I've never seen my bones. Are they here-

a placement of accidentals-
I am the caretaker
of a mad-brained whoopsidaisy-

the center of an oak leaf-

all baubles,
an ostentation of gaudy electrons-

how touch the touching

the placement of a thing is a thing in need

o grant me the soapbark

to rehearse the canard
until the assault

has become sunlight streaming straight through a body

My pince-nez
is not faulty,
but my world-without-end
is of a relative duration-

and I did not come looking for looking until it spit me out and spawned me.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 116
117

Duane Esposito
Duane Esposito is Assistant Professor of English at Nassau Community College in
Garden City, New York. He has an M.A. from Suny Brockport and an M.F.A. from
the University of Arizona. In 1994, in conjunction with the University of Arizona
Poetry Center, Duane was given the Academy of American Poets Award, selected
by Diane Glancy. His first book of poetry, The Book of Bubba, was published in
May 1998 by Brown Dog Press. His poems have appeared in dozens of literary
journals, and he was recently nominated for a 2003 Pushcart Prize. He Lives on
Long Island with his wife, Lisa, and their cat Main Street.

The Closest It’s Been to Earth in Fifty-Thousand Years

My brain vessel explodes, & three

days later, after waking from a coma,
I’m in a wheelchair on the rooftop

of a hospital, left shoulder propped

by brace beneath armpit, left leg falls
from the metal foot plate,

head tilts, spastic, to one side,

spittle dried in the corner
of my slurring mouth.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 117
118

The years since your eleventh,

comparing elbows, upper arms,
& cutting crusts off bread.

An interior voice that says

you’re obese for eating &
don’t deserve your pleasures.

The afternoons dizzy, the nights

asleep early, eating only vegetables
to deny your taste for meat.

Are clouds the color of a heart

in a bay at low tide?
May we wash the sky into our faces?

To be both
the living &
the life being seen,

before time & after, creation

from damage-- in memory
of our trauma.

Aren’t we alive?
Mars floats by
our bedroom window.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 118
119

Sky

Running after kids

who vandalize our home.

Driving his milk truck

to pay for the loss

of the mortgage
in a poker game.

Punching holes in walls

& hanging pictures

to cover rage. Distracted

from family by t.v.--

dinner at half-time
each Fall for 16 weeks.

He kicks a failed athletic dream

through his private snow,

gaping eyes & mouth

in the orange, fanged sky.

I imagine him alive,

but my hero is aging or dead.

May the Universe bless

& keep my father.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 119
120

Sing

We are big or just enough space.

Are these two things the same?

Is this our time,

brushing your hair?

Is this a kind of prayer,

useless limbs with wings

to lift them far from fury

about movements I can’t make?

My dreams are filled

with top hats on polished floors.

Has the bulb been planted with my fingers?

Each year’s an answer that it has.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 120
121

Ben Lyle Bedard

Theory Trash Fountain

lion tender fountain

exit tiger rundown cheetah
pull-up sit down antietam spring

mirror tame magnet hinge

open mind luck number end
she got goo goo blind train
or antonym ripple and sing sack
as mind fling
mitten girl
gone rusty

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 121
122

Apple Menu

on the subject of taste

savor she and she and she
heterodox castaway
fling island sting ray
her nose her chin her eyes
her lips her hair her socks
her boots her pants her eyelash
her tongue her words her heard
hand towel wrist band
my eye

--

I said you said

until you didn’t

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 122
123

Plunge Hat Sicken Throat

assemble torch flare

blind cupid fool game
dark rain glance doctor
be a doll be a donut
would you height trip teeth
shoeshine sugar lisp
tremble touchstone
such a sight blue
moon

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 123
124

Faint General Repose

lime cask stripe pull

gate link curl light
Bernini beast kiss fountain
yawn hand face
drought pain insect spade
coin stone raise
shy seven fools ten gents
snow date smoke stud
back scratch berry burst
I think I love you
don’t compromise
don’t vacuum
don’t fail safe
battle product
I think love
dedication
charm dentist

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 124
125

I Like Mountains at Night

pocket visions
high lovely sustain

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 125
126

theodore knapsack
[]
prt 1
sharp of _____ _
(and slghtst of mffld noises)
_tug arrow mouth to lungĻ __ _ _
__one, then the two_
_red and blue,,
__________prblm-
___-attic hospital diagram__________
_______do_____n’t,______,hear,____________
____________th sharp of_ _ ___breath,__You_
______are required as hum ___an to notice this______
_ _ ___ ___ _TORTURER and blanket
__music crying stbb’d –like
_______ _ _.
prt 2
[]_____
_watches cement
_wash_______ov’r_
__feet-steps
_________lead off screen
____picture:close looks Snakes_____
&Oat Meal,
__________Vomit_
________and________________
_________________ BONES. pctre:__
________________thecement, watching always,
go the lungs working-BLUE sticky
thecement__

monsterswalloWEVErything________________
_____________RED
sharpsticks-stab
______wounds____ _ ____ __ __
___ _ _ _ .
___________red arrows__ sharp
______sswllw.
_mst
th_
_ng
s__
_
_

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 126
127

[]
commercial
-
killer, wash the blood from your
hands.

(“when i get through five or 6:”

“i need no ordinary soap.”)

TELL ME MORE >>

>somuchbloodithink some brain
orfresh skins tubes, musclestring

the affecting atmosphere to your

inside’s out.

-
hook (the shopping list)

credit cards
punching numbers
anesthesia
surgical steal.

checkchckchck,chck,

-
a lure.
i am a reaction to the heat off
your mouth radiant fingers strech
from your cheeks i now you’re here
help is on the way ghost fingers loop
tape records the creeping floor boards
the breathing attics.

-
the whole fleet
and bygone rifles

rest the horizon

prettyfor head.

i’m going
in circles.

-stunning card trick-

-
br .k

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 127
128

you ‘lll have everything

you’dream

an

yul neverd ream

agan.

-
clouds pass
you sleep still
one just color

-
after the rain when the
wormsv surfaced ,washed about:

/end commercial

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 128
129

Jukka-Pekka Kervinen
Editor of xStream is ezine focused to experimental poetry,collage,cut-up, computer-
generated texts etc. Every issue consists of two parts: Regular issue, which is a
selection of poetry submitted to xStream and Autoissue which is computer-
generated version of regular issue. There is also a Collaborative, which is human-
machine interaction between poet and computer. It has own publishing schedule.
http://xstream.xpressed.org/

motion

key(-g m -r(bu-dagg(-g requ(r(-g (-s(ruc(s c-((---((--s

ambula-ce wa(ch(-g (-crease (-(ercep( e-c-uraged repea(s
crea((ons l(nk ed(( pr(vacy chess gr(ef da(e repay m anly
fermen w n opened pur y f c ous unal ered v ola or
whose m arry was m ends sends s nks pr de rad on penal y
suff c en pulled cla ms cap ur ng po n orn hopes m emor es
alarm ng conveys al ude log cal adm ed chem s ry beas s
fence brushes padd(ng res(ar((ng defla((ng (ackl(ng concourse
lec(ure c(v(l(zed grumbled dahls(ed( demand pe(roleum
schema(ic anal(g(us enc(uraged (apes sh(p (ar sal(y declare
en(ails generic enquiries s(ruc(ured licenses f(lded behaving
pud!( uk(w defeds ava!l d((dle (rga!zed l((se!g
!!p!cs del!c!!us l!ses charms weakesses subm!!!ed p!l!!s
pa d susta heels v let va sh c up s d f es p t ful
h rses d splace scarred bl k pr e cr ed pr pt g e tted
c s s fir ly h stess reas able azeewly eergizes b ig
rubbed m uscle hostile warmly lugs dogs perverse irritate
d(scla(m surv(v(rs u(quely blush s(ld pr(ve sh(pped he(ghts
fact(rs adjustmet cl(e p(ets flash m (k d(es m (d(ght
seld(m act(vely w(uds rudeess rest(res rel(able tr(als
abr(ad d(srupt shuttl(ng (nfluence created der(ve ash(re
att)rney shipped squeezed unusual bubble uncalled flagrantly
r)ach weeks w)n eclecoic reso)ring oexob))k orucks inoeresos
v)ice sine repeaos privilege apr)n insisoeno inv)king pecks
)uscle ran duly evidence adapo)rs usable fad zer)s soruck
r oaoi al parad x devel ps weak esses po c mma soirs
m ohs behave versi a yway fearful slashi g c mpelled
t pic repr gram i here t t ascertai teb k bl dless
tissueewly amateurish locates adored engages bulls doubledos
angrily unseen currently exports clones attach debt add
drive conducting ceteris owl handicap lose santa print bare
antique definition clamored m anly left kill threw above

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 129
130

[cia]/x

shepherd practices expect cumulative with weekends constraint

prances keys tall shall chalk hknws pian sectinal
sincerest as applied levered brutal nuclear scrap pie as alchl
valuatin as affair multiply kitten demcratic client unlcked
deactivates undisputed exceptins prximity prdigal
handling not ebooks frustrat ed bandittation ed bl ess es
suicid e nostalgic with w e ek end robots hatch statut es discharg ed
illustrat es r einstall indistinct junction b eating pr ef err ed
anything expectation striven departing with wholesale threat
nic.ly cong.u.nc. coo.din.to. p.op..ty copy fl.g .ic. fl.sh
ti.p.d. p.io. und..t.k.n ...son plots pi..cy pip.s pix.ls
th.n spot with w.ist unlik. z.pp.d .s .biding t..nsisto. ov..ly
nvis.g.d sup..ch..g. upg..d. with whi.s .v.d. cli.bing .s ..ticl.s
bible tide sun judgement governed governmental as apprehension
escaping extrapolated irreparable testified inquired
considerate majority consent elimination minded berries
harness offsets reflective mix drill youth four gross tenuous
every brx|nx|hes x|s x|dmx|ttx|ng x|orrex|ted x|ntx|ngx|ble publx|shed
redundx|nt unprofx|tx|ble x|s x|nybody x|mx|gx|ng sx|x|lx|ng plx|nnx|ng
stex|dx|ly fx|x|torx|x|l unhx|des x|ox|krox|x|h twx|gs jelly tossed
vx|sx|ts plx|yed x|s x|udx|tor texts px|lm trx|x|l x|ool sum verb notx|h
e.r m.ils punish c.ring disgusted informs che.ting touched
solos hints hops h+v+ crypt chim+ n+st t+nur+ t+chniqu+s
unus+bl+ browns br++ch+s polish+d sm+lt consum+ modifying
+bolish+d cultur+hrub with worlds +s +n+logy +s +dvis+s tick+ts
fu+l+l+cts crush gi+nt f+rm linkofi+ clon+ +s +ssist dis+ss+mbl+d
pr s nX| sX|ts X|hyd pr s f rth rX|ng .s .rrX|v yX| lds r t.t s
p.tX|h s tw.rX|st.nt bX|tm.ps X| ntX|n stX|p l.t d X|nd fX|nX|t ly
th r .s .v r.g s d X| d X|strX|X|t h .r wltr ggl d gl b
dX|sX| ss .s . dX| nX| wX|th wX|ld st h .d.X|h j rn.ls X| ns m s nj ys
gado fold cereal with warriors preparation as adoreettled gracefully
show ropes recursively initiate pinpointed picked proportion
parody clashesz

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 130
131

m g[N]

r ph phys s s u v rs y l pz h v
rr d d r ph w h pro o s produ l h w h
- m t l-f mtm t mg t ms
i s v l t l s lid f ms g hit ( wd y s with its
dimen[S]i nal plane[S] a m[S] are [S] l [S]ely b und hence u[S]e
f graphi e a[S] lubrican pencil lead) diam nd (hard becau[S]e
its constituents are well connected atoms all 3 dimensions)
buckyballs (60-atom soccerballs) nanotubes all have important
p op s bu g [N] hy [N]o m g[N] u[N]
[N]ow [N]o pu - bo[N] s mp w s k[N]ow[N] b m g[N] x p wh [N]
doped held at temperatures close absolute zero the
x r m nt rotons w r su d a n arby
h s n h s m sm m un s w s
n gh in pi m m gn i d ing m ng b n
gne i w hen e red en i ive q id de ec r
g e ic [F] rce icr c py ur[F] ce cc r i g e [F]
r s rc rs room- mp r ur m g ic gr p i mig v
[A]ppl c[A] [O] p [O] c ( [O]m [O] c[A]l w[O] k
ha a [O]m a 2-d m [O] al aph lay p kl d
pro on m b 100% p n polar zabl ) a da a ora
med um c magne c b s could be nscr bed a pure carbon
rath[E]r than [E]ta [E]ta -s[E] conductor s w[E]ak
[E] r ph [E] h o h v[E] p c o or udy o
wh h r r h r -hydr d [F] r r y
n pa r h ar n-f d ga d nd rg ng rrad at n

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 131
132

Doug Draime
Writing and publishing many years. Recent chapbook, "Slaves Of The Harvest"
(Indian Heritage Publishing, 2002). Another collection of poems, "Unoccupied
Zone", forthcoming from Pitchfork Press, early 2004. His wide range of work has
been appearing in magazines, newspapers, and broadsides internationally for over
thirty years. Currently working on a short story collection. Draime also writes plays.
He lives in the foothills of Oregon.

Bob Pulling Green Chain

Beloved tap dancing fucking truce

camel hump death shading electric extending
misery inside half burnt meadows dust bellows
on the riverbank tits buttons heavy priding across
centuries falsely calling abstractions
jarring spinal fibers in morgue tunnels
with thinking trees

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 132
133

Poem For Several Ways To South

The chelate toadstools

The crystal fur box

The dead monkey’s scream

The pink mink fenders

All the girls dripping hot down their legs

Fireside chats with a deaf mute

American flags used as ass wipers

History lessons taught by a drunk Genghis Khan

Wilmington, Delaware dildo salesmen

Not so much sugar in my cocaine, please

Falling rocks grab your cocks

Over the edge of benevolent lies

Proper improper mixed unmixed

Nothing said nothing undone

The faraway look of a total stranger.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 133
134

Sliding

The weeping fist profound

(jam) nip sip across lower
middle income americans unveil
estimated doorway path graphs over/
and, areas other; interdesignature
will expand (revels) (cleared) by;
closing way asked toothless during
bright eyes collapse arrive in wake
courses sliding with handle bars, as,
ranchers ride the energy wind /aim/
undo/cut/ inside reduction pawing-

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 134
135

San Francisco Chronicle

Something coming up flying open faced barely

thundering wind settles on crossing beauty
weeping. Though, one should know the street
or killing time what it is worth downlowinyour
gut. Eye glass was there kneeling, what with
them’s, there’s, and all those those’s,
pushing me a copy of the San Francisco Chronicle
thru the great box in the sky

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 135
136

Moon Shadows Cat

cat moves along wall.

cat moves along iVy waLL.

mOOn sHaDows CAt mOv

InG aLOng w a L L.

mooN shADOWS c a t MOV

inG ALONg

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 136
137

Final Continuous Periodic Composite

Sound Waveform Dream

<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<///////////////////////////////////////////
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>first dream of ^^^^^^^^^^^
_________^^^^^^^^>>>>>>>>>>>>>>...........^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzz/////zzzzZZ
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>^^^^^^
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

(his wife comes in, turns off tv)

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 137
138

14 Zen Monks

14 zen monks stood by the locked door

14 zen monks stood in front of the locked door
14 zen monks stood outside the locked door
14 zen monks stood inside the locked door

42 zen monks knocked

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 138
139

Breeze From The North

breeze breeze breeze breezebreeze

breezebreeze breeze breeze
from
from
from thenorth northnorthnorth
breeze
breeze
from the
north, north.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 139
140

John G. Hall
Manchester, Wythenshawe, UK born. Editor of Citizen32(Launching October 2004)
Writes plays, short story and poetry, Political activist 1979-90, Member of the South
Manchester Poetry Group during the 70's. Regular reader at 'The Why Not Pub"-
Liverpool during the 80's. Attended Lancaster University, Reading Social History, in
the 90's. Poetic influence William Blake and Robert Creeley. Now writing a Sc-fi
novel called "The Drowning fish".

The Manchester Blues Of Night.

The dancing cat fell, Mars making

soft tracks in space, while my hand
unclasped from you. Shadows of
lovers shaped across black
by yellow light, while my love made
rabbit legs behind my back. Pistol songs
banged from the jukebox, pierced tongues
bite for bite. But the safety of freedom
flops, cigarettes burn, electric shocks,
heaven deeper than submarines can drop,
while hell closed for freezing over, we floated out
into the cool Manchester blues of night. Mars
left floating cold , a sodden cat in a city cut.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 140
141

History Wins.

The golden dark undressed behind my back

all lit by neon beings dancing street gangs
superman meets Fred Astaire meets Batman
running wild across the sky's burning map.
Stevie Smith's children rapping enjoinment's
making shapes in the sea , I screamed to them to make for land,
give up floating and face the waves of facts. But they took gold,
bit the bullet and dragged their generation down.
Figure's of light fused , soldered tight to Victorian buildings
sorry sheriff badges pinned on the workmanship of ages.
And yet red brick and white mortar catch the eye, fat angel
and farting gargoyle flute the churches , and above the arch
the date cut deep in sandstone still reads 1848.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 141
142

Michael Farrell
Michael Farrell is the Australia editor of Slope. He has poems in The Best
Australian Poetry 2003 (UQP) and The Best Australian Poems 2003 (Black Inc).
His recent book is ode, ode (Salt Publishing). He lives in Melbourne.

prefer nonstudent

with hair that flames & splits with hair that

&s always off the balcony &s always off the
leaving the lighter by the stove leaving the lig
never wondering if their heads out the window
or falling in love & dying at fortyfive or fall
a bright quiet smile every morning a brig
with bearable dishes to wash up with beara
no haloes or chimney affinities no haloes or
tempting gifts when theyre gone tempting gifts
from paris that taste much the same from p
making their study seem normal making the
& smelling like elderly gentlemen & asters

mr hardwork

more so get used to new silhouettes shifts

be more like remember other shifts chest
neighbours be swift & wear a daring chest hover
he neighbours with video cleaner hover status
losing he projects anxiety for sexual status gratification
daring losing if you include gratification conservative
though daring being ultimately conservative enough
theres though being heres not merely enough off
a theres a heavy dinner to walk off chat
& a ginger cats trapped in enforced chat safari
he & you thought we were on a safari bridges
so he loops round the trees like theyre bridges silhouettes

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 142
143

did know

groggy my body remembered the foggy beach me

& groggy the names come back to me that
we & the pancakes without eggs that fiends
into we turned into bread & soccer fiends pics
of into cricket friends hi nipper the pics in
the of the painted windows it was warm in waiting
for the water lying on the sand waiting teachers
a for an interview kids against teachers or
call a week later its choose to work or go
back call a great writer for lunch go seed
toast back to the beach after poppy seed overcast
my toast cake really will it be overcast beach

an candy

whos youre following someone with clothes & short hair friday
a whos fast & it helps him you suppose its friday unexpected
whose a holiday for some not for the unexpected wheel
barrow whose calendars secret & has stripped to the wheel a
garden barrow to who knows pave a driveway place a to
the garden its cool yet will warm up quick cross to the
chance the shade its not that kind of day with the bay
gets chance of dancing on the agenda even the bay a
few gets a miss today youll flex a little to box a the
form few books a glimpse is enough for a poem the only
be form must change to keep our interest & only indirect
youre be revealed when our gaze is inward indirect hair

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 143
144

Jorge Lucio de Campos

Jorge Lucio de Campos is an Adjunct Professor of Theory of Communication and
Culture at Escola Superior de Desenho Industrial (ESDI) of the Universidade do Estado do
Rio de Janeiro (UERJ). His poems, essays and interviews circulate in various printed and
online: Poièsis (UFF), Concinnitas.

PROTECTED VISION
a Fred Wilson

Oh God, a dog
inside out

that I search
in vain and

refuse in my
useless skin

I accuse you
and such act

completes
myself –

I don't know
if I love or

ignore you

If you explain
myself or

if I complicate
you

understanding
you

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 144
145

VISÃO PROTEGIDA
a Fred Wilson

Ó Deus, cão
ao avesso

que, em vão
busco e nego

em minha
casca inútil

Dedo em riste
te acuso e

tal ato me
completa

Não sei se
te amo ou

te ignoro

Se é você que
me explica -

se sou quem
te complica

ao te
entender

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 145
146

Tell me if
I'll be only

dust in your
eyelids -

if are you
who makes

myself in
your entrails -

I, an ewe
inside out -

one that denies

your herd -

started already
the triumphal

march

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 146
147

Diga, se acaso
serei mesmo

um corpo
estranho

em tuas
pálpebras -

se é você
que me

fabrica nas
entranhas -

logo a mim
ovelha ao

avesso -
que reluta

em tua
manada

- iniciada já
a marcha

triunfante

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 147
148

THE HUMAN CONDITION

for René Magritte

The flesh
detaches from

its own bones

while is

left over
and the soul

grazes beyond
the web as

a flogistic
landfill - as

a sticked
projectile

pointed to
the milk

of bears
and stars

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 148
149

A CONDIÇÃO HUMANA

A René Magritte

A carne se
solta dos

ossos ao
passo

que sobra
e pasta

além da teia
a alma -

flogístico
aterro

fincado
projétil

rumo ao
leite de

ursas e
estrelas

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 149
150

LIKE WATER IN THE WATER (Second version)

A phosphorescent
way of seeing -

a way of being
and feeling that

a needle deflowers -
a poem from an

intense and dotty

interior that the

finger mouldes
with its nail -

till the anus

finally confess

and the pain

emerges

with a tongue
roughness

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 150
151

COMO ÁGUA EM ÁGUA (Segunda versão)

Um modo de ver
Fosforecente -

uma forma de ser

e sentir que uma

agulha fina deflora -

o poema de um

dentro intenso
pontilhado que

o dedo amolda
cravado até

que a unha -
até que o ânus

reconheça e a
dor se insinue

com uma rudeza

de língua

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 151
152

Harriet Zinnes
Harriet Zinnes has published eight books of poetry, two collections of short
stories, a book on Ezra Pound (New Directions) and is Professor Emerita of
English of Queens College of the City University of New York. She is also a
contributing editor of the DENVER QUARTERLY and of THE HOLLINS CRITIC as
well as an art critic for THE NEW YORK ARS MAGAZINE.

Into It, Out of It

Into it
and out of it
like a bird flying

And the wind the wind

swiftly blowing

And the rain the rain

slowly pelting

And the footsteps the footsteps

noiselessly groping

toward the which and the when

that are heedlessly hoping.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 152
153

Wings

Astonishment flies
going beyond the eyes.
It has wings
to encircle a nowhere that bewilders
the very “I” that wishes to let go.

I open my eyes to a cloud

that whispers and focuses me
yet quickly escapes my vision.

Is it I? Is it ego?
The question remains
even as a bird has wings;
wings that fly.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 153
154

Chris Stroffolino
Chris Stroffolino is the author of Stealer's Wheel, Light as a Fetter (Situations, 97),
Cusps (Aerial/Edge, 95), Oops (Pavement Saw, 1994), and Incidents
(Iniquity/Vendetta, 1991). Most recently on Faux Press ‘Pieces of a Sequence’
www.fauxpress.com/ e/stroffolino/ From Inside The Sun-Roof of a Cloud

100a.

“I’d rather see you dead little girl” so “paint your face and dance!” but “please don’t
wear red tonight” for I am not yet “younger than that now” enough to give up the
“fear to bring children into the world” that’s been hurled by them, of course. I’m
going back over the ground I skimmed in “maturity,” trying to dig my face into it to
find the love I missed out on in the misogyny I missed out on. A simple story,
punctuated by classic hits of the 60s, to have something to wash off in baptism
besides the holy ghost of original sin that blamed Eve and shut-up Fantasia, as if it
is my misanthropy, my self-loathing, because Notley and Riding and I don’t believe
the “Nice guy of the 90s” Someday I won’t need Lucy in the Sky to orchestrate the
song that’s a beautiful lie (“I’m Only Sleeping”) until you strip it of some of its dream
energy enough to actually indulge my “day of leisure” and be silent to correct my
neglect of Julian by the househusbanding of Sean and watch the shadow of the
walrus wheels I could only be when I rode them running scared cursing Raleigh coz
I’m just a jealous guy waiting for some druid dude to lift the veil and note how
abstract culture eclipses the heroic personism that can’t predict the life to come
even by walking where once he “tried to run” his crippled inside love to reach the
toppermost of the poppermost to be an obscure 35 without having had to be a
famous 24

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 154
155

105.

I told her there can’t be excitement without anxiety, then (as if I didn’t need her)
corrected myself: “Where there’s the smoke of anxiety, there’s the fire of
excitement” so there can be fire without smoke, but then she looked at me with
those big brown eyes to make me confront the way I’ve suffered for being a bad
listener, as if I never had autism beaten out of me, or listening kissed into me, and I
have to get better at asking questions and holding my tongue and taking in all the
info-pinions (blades of grass) without feeling like I’m ready to burst unless I have a
notebook (subway) handy and am ready to use it, and I gotta get better at follow-
through, at not being so thin-skinned that their habits tempt me from me. Thus, if it
seems to her I’m being manipulative and seeing life as a game in which I must trick
others, I’m sorry, truly sorry—that’s not my intention. My intention is, was, is, to trick
myself, to trick the autism, the pre-pond Narcissus (pre-backward glance Orpheus)
that seems to be my “nature” but is perhaps only my habit, like what I said
yesterday (had to tell her to tell myself) about how it’s hard sometimes to get over
the drag and hump (when exercising or playing the piano) of the first half-hour, but
once past that, not knowing where the time goes (and just because I often get
better as the day goes on is no excuse for waking up on the wrong side of bed).
This could also apply to sex, for instance. I’ve noticed lately, how I have to be
inside her twice to come. I’m not complaining about this, because it prolongs the
pleasure, hopefully, for both of us (the analogy doesn’t hold, at least as well as she
does). The profound realization, or funny thing, I think, is that I often stop physical
exercising, or playing the piano, more out of guilt that I’m not getting enough writing
done than I am out of laziness, and now that I know that, I think I can accentuate
the fire and de-emphasize the smoke, and can play their games “without losing
track and coming down a bit to hard,” as they say (which is preferable, I think, to
“I’m not like them, but I can pretend.”). I am like them, even though she’s right
about the vasectomy dressing up fear as golden guilt…

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 155
156

Gerburg Garmann
A native of Germany, Garmann teaches German and French at the University of
Indianapolis. Her scholarly publications (books and articles) appear in both German
and French in international journals. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in
various magazines, including "The Adirondack Review", "The Muse Apprentice
Guild", " She was listed in both the January and May issues of Lyrikzeitung &
Poetry News 2002.

In The Stillness of Morning

In the stillness of morning

I hold your words up
against the light

to see what they might mean

above the moist cellars
of the dawning day.

In their slipstream
I’ll have to feign lameness
like a skittish horse that has
gotten too fast within
shouting distance
of its rider’s dreams.

For now,
the sun will apply the spica
and tomorrow, I’ll ride out
on the storm
past your finish line,
with mice and monkeys
under unkempt clouds,

and I know
--tornados and latter-day saints aside--
the sky could fall anytime
not just over me
but all dormant seeds
in passing.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 156
157

Body Lacing Blooming Clouds

Before I roll north,

I'll have to dive deeper
this time to feed,
stake your life upon it.

They sliced the surface

and made deals
with my midwives,
I heard the clink of coins
in their purses.

While I nuzzled for milk

past broken arrows, past
my mother's hard-pumping breath,
they snapped their teeth
into the belly of Eden,
heads in tails out,
tails in heads out.

Moving home,
toward the blooming clouds,
the seaweed laces my wounds
with my gasps, and I greet
night's gulling tentacles
like incoming ships,

for they rhythmically spurt

the luminous ink Jonah saved
long ago of my kin
to light the lamps of the world.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 157
158

Malapertness: That Sort of Thing

One day, they

washed up on shore,
shook off the water,
probed their upward mobility
and hemmed themselves into
the topmost branches
of the only tree nearby,
close to an outcrop of rocks.

One evening, they

flicked their eyes around,
took in their dim shadows
with mutual guardedness,
stuck their fingers into
the forbidden patches
of sandy grass and
received a neat cluster
of bites in return.

Struck dumb, they

tried the morning.
From their satchels,
they hatched potent nouns,
misnomers, alas, meant to reflect
the shape of their wits,
but stalled, mon Dieu,
under the uptowering fog of dawn.

Slyly they smile and wait

for better times
that must be
just over the next hill,
on its aping fringe.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 158
159

Gregory Vincent
St. Thomasino
Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino is a poet and theorist living in New York City where
he edits the online journal eratio postmodern poetry. His e-books Go (spring, 2003)
and Go Mirrored (fall, 2003) can be downloaded for free at www.xpressed.org

Labor Day

is for
and louder than our own

among and above all the steps

in order to

are needed, see

or

in that fashion
to part company

increased and further drawn

to give,

and say no more

drawn,

or cannot go
to let or do or say

are ramp
and see and at an end

a fold or band
the tuft and wear

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 159
160

Gordon Hadfield

From ANT

11 subfamilies. 297 genera. 8,800 species. never more ants. never more
homogeneity. behavioral divisions appear. physical distinctions predict
future. roofed exoskeleton. iron exoskeleton. cotton exoskeleton.
occlusions occur. ant fills in. hill swarming ants. streaming. never more
ants. never more homogeneity.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 160
161

no dream of ant before ant. no hint. no premonition. no vision. no song. no

sound. no dream of ant before ant. no quiet rumble. no low chewing. no
breeze. wind. no spur. mandible. but eye. this is visible. worker queen.
worker breeder. pull legs into pupal posture. eye embeds colony. magnifies.
ant scent becomes lost. glandular sources create appearance. impact
scarcely noticed. before gestures ant freezes. eye focuses. retina whirls.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 161
162

“we have come” ant said

“to be misunderstood

“alarm emits simple

“attraction group affects

“particular castes cases

“in scent what is visible

“insect what is gone

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 162
163

“in other words” ant said

“the smallest bits elude you

“in ants you see only

“yourselves

“in particles only mastery

“or model of exploitation

“we live a different greed

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 163
164

mandibles gaping. gasters cocked. immobilize stereotype dance: house

here. well here. life here. ant here. the charade social. political nestmate
under lights. but underground. production = defense. daily consuming
universal feature. ant gives examples to committee. international. forces
interact. makes gaps and important demonstration. careful comparisons
jotted down. before other ants arrive. producing encounter. producing ant.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 164
165

call it ant. call it metal or encapsulated thing. turn time in to data. turn body
into time. turn body into data. turn ant into measure. expand substratum.
drill hole here. innocuous. before first thought. call it ant but see cars. call
it ant but see homogenous brick houses in rows. ant sees disease. ant
expands. here nothing. hiding in thermoregulation. car cooled. house
cooled. ant cooled. ambient temperature for colony. call it ant.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 165
166

Fragment 12 (from Fragments of a Forgotten Genesis, by

Abdellatif Laâbi)

Now everything’s asleep

from seaweed to sky
from monster to ant

Beauty visits

She opens her bag

pulling out instruments one by one
her subtle display
string
brushes
feathers
herbs
small stones

Expressionless

She leans on the crib

Accepting the present

for what it is

Without judging

The task is immense

but she has time

"Fragment 12" is from a collaborative translation project with Nancy Hadfield from the
Moroccan francophone poet Abdellatif Laâbi entitled “Fragments of a Forgotten Genesis.”
Laâbi was imprisoned by the Moroccan government for 8 years for political dissent and is
well known for publishing his poetry magazine Souffles.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 166
167

Fragment 12 (from Fragments d’une genèse oubliée, by

Abdellatif Laâbi)

Tout dort maintenant

de l’algue au ciel
du monstre à la fourmi

La beauté est en visite

Elle ouvre son sac

sort un à un ses instruments
sa panoplie subtile
cordes
pinceaux
plumes
herbes
cailloux

Elle se penche sur le berceau

Ne fait pas mine de s’étonner

Elle accepte le présent

tel qu’il est

Ne juge point

La tâche est immense

mais elle a le temps

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 167
168

With beauty comes patience

Its task is too fragile

too uncertain

Anything but an affirmation

Each touch erasing the other

to better affix itself

Beauty does not think of rebelling

criticizing
still less correcting

She doesn’t add anything

what exists suffices

She chooses without forgetting

without despising
what she casts aside

Considerate
she reaches out for ugliness

Everything’s asleep
from coast to coast
from cradle
to wolf and ewe

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 168
169

Avec la beauté vient la patience

Son oeuvre est si fragile

si incertaine

Surtout pas d’affirmation

Chaque touche en efface une autre

pour mieux la fixer

Loin d’elle l’idée de s’insurger

critiquer
encore moins corriger

La beauté n’ajoute pas

ce qui existe lui suffit

Elle choisit sans oublier

sans mépriser
ce qu’elle laisse de côté

Elle traite la laideur avec considération

lui tend la perche

Tous dorment maintenant

côte à côte
dans le berceau
le loup et la brebis

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 169
170

idea and shadow

desert and twisted sky
the creature gape-mouthed
the horde satiated

Beauty works in silence

sheltered from view

What she accomplishes

must first pass unnoticed
to daybreak where its presence imposes itself

Amazes but does not disconcert

This way
she refrains from giving herself
or refusing

She prepares for the meeting

and retires
so as not to become unsettled

Beauty does not like to feast

hers is a sad cup

Compliments make her doubt herself

tarnish her

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 170
171

l’idée et l’ombre
le désert et le ciel enlacés
la créature bouche ouverte
la horde repue

La beauté travaille en silence

à l’abri des regards

Ce qu’elle réalise
doit passer d’abord inaperçu
jusqu’au jour où sa présence s’impose

Étonne sans détonner

En cela
elle reste libre de se donner
ou de se refuser

Elle prépare la rencontre

et se retire
pour ne pas déranger

La beauté n’aime pas festoyer

Elle a le vin triste

Les compliments la font douter d’elle

l’éclaboussent

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 171
172

Without prudery
she avoids caresses

Of all offerings
she prefers eyes

Now everything’s asleep

Beauty bends over the crib

She peers at the tip

conjoining abyss
rioting
against existence’s imperfections
against gnawing disorder
against lurking violence

she knows that she can do nothing

for power
She has only aloofness
and this small message she slips across
in case
the disastrous river of destiny
cannot reverse the course
but she calls again on the miraculous stream
which draws itself parallel
scoffs at fate

She gives the stream

the curious name
of Love
and begins to work

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 172
173

Sans être prude

elle évite les attouchements

De toutes les offrandes

elle préfère celle des yeux

Tous dorment maintenant

La beauté se penche sur le berceau

Elle scrute la cime

abouchée à l’abîme
s’émeut
aux imperfections de l’être
au désordre qui le ronge
aux violences qui l’attendent

Elle sait qu’elle n’y peut rien

De pouvoir
elle n’a que celui d’être hors de portée
des pouvoirs
et de faire passer ce petit message
au cas où
Du fleuve calamiteux des destinées
elle ne peut inverser le cours
mais elle rappelle le ruisselet miraculeux
qui s’étire parallèle
narguant la fatalité
Au ruisselet
elle donne le nom curieux
d’amour
et se met au travail

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 173
174

Lev Rubinstein
Translated from the Russian
by Philip Metres and Tatiana Tulchinsky

Born in 1947 in Moscow, Lev Rubinstein

worked as a librarian while he took part in the
Russian literary underground, a job that at
least partly inspired his use of the note card
as poetic medium. Rubinstein’s central
importance to the Russian avant-garde, and
his artistic affinities with international
experimental poetry, make him an essential
figure both to Russian and to world poetry;
that he has been translated into German,
French, Swedish, Polish, and English
indicates the already-existing regard for his
achievements.

Rubinstein's poetic texts are written on a

series of note cards, often mirroring or
distorting the various discourses of language.
His poetic texts read--in his words--"at times like an realistic novel, at times like a
dramatic play, at times like a lyric poem, etc., that is, it slides along the edges of
genres and, like a small mirror, fleetingly reflects each of them, without identifying
with any of them. This genre is, in essence, a hybrid genre, combining poetry,
prose, drama, visual art, and performance." Rubinstein's work naturally invites
multi-media interpretations; these "flash" renderings of his texts are but one rather
successful permutation of his pliable work.

*Catalogue of Comedic Novelties: Selected Poems of Lev Rubinstein*, translated by Philip

Metres and Tatiana Tulchinsky, is published by Ugly Duckling Presse in 2004 a part of the
Eastern European Poets Series (#4). ISBN: 0-9727684-4-0

Philip Metres' poems and translations of Russian poets have appeared in

numerous journals and in Best American Poetry (2002). His books include *A
Kindred Orphanhood: Selected Poems of Sergey Gandlevsky* (Zephyr 2003),
*Catalogue of Comedic Novelties: Selected Poems of Lev Rubinstein* (Ugly
Duckling 2004), and *Primer for Non-Native Speakers* (Kent State 2004). He is an
assistant professor of English at John Carroll University, living in Cleveland, Ohio.

Tatiana Tulchinsky, a has translated and published numerous works into Russian
and into English, is currently completing the *Anthology of Russian Verse, 18th-
20th century* with Gwenan Wilbur. In 1998, she was awarded the AATTSEEL
Prize for Best Translation from a Slavic or East European Language for her work
with Marvin Kantor on *Leo Tolstoy’s Plays in Three Volumes* (Northwestern
University Press).

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 174
175

The Hero Emerges

1
Well, what on earth is there to say?

2
He knows something, but won’t tell.

3
Who knows, maybe you’re right.

4
It’s better for you, and tasty too.

5
At seven, by the first traincar.

6
It goes on about the student.

7
Let’s go. I’m also heading there.

8
Have you decided something now?

9
I rode the bus to the very end.

10
Hey listen to what I’ve just written.

11
You go this way, straight through the yard.

12
Aren’t you fed up with him by now?

13
Tomorrow, then. No need to rush.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 175
176

14
Three times a day, before your meals.

15
Stop it! Quit your fooling around!

16
I’ll meet you at the corner store.

17
Between one hundred and one twenty.

18
So here’s what I say to that.

19
Go on ahead, I’ll be right there.

20
Enough already with your nonsense.

21
Come on now, show us your tongue.

22
So are we going after all?

23
No thank you, I’m doing fine.

24
You’re serious about it, right?

25
You know, that’s not the way to do it.

26
Have you gone totally insane?

27
Okay, let’s give it one more try.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 176
177

28
Thank you, I’d rather do it myself.

29
I’m kind of used to it by now.

30
Now do I need this or do you?

31
You’re not exactly right yourself.

32
What does it say about the student?

33
I’ve told you once: stay out of this!

34
Leave me alone. I’m feeling awful.

35
Why don’t you call there and find out?

36
He always looks so gloomy and mad.

37
You could at least let in some air.

38
Another round and we’ll go home.

39
Despite it all, the food was great.

40
I just can’t take it anymore!

41
Now what would rhyme with the word “five”?

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 177
178

42
I can’t believe how stubborn you are.

43
Six letters, ending in “P”.

44
I gotta go. I’ll call you later.

45
How old? About fifty. Why?

46
You did turn off the iron, right?

47
He comes in just like this, and sits.

48
Looked in the mirror lately, friend?

49
Good riddance. Just forget about it.

50
I’d really rather stay at home.

51
What did you want to ask me now?

52
I know what I’m talking about.

53
I tried it on, it fit just right.

54
So how’s about it, one more round?

55
You better ask those other guys.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 178
179

56
Thank you. It’s time for me to go.

57
And you believed it, you poor sap?

58
This guy's been smashed since breakfast.

59
Instead, take Mitka for a walk.

60
Who is the father? Does she know?

61
Next week, it’ll be a year already.

62
Oh, really? I had no idea.

63
Are you done talking? Now listen.

64
I couldn’t care less about it.

65
Let’s take a walk down to the metro.

66
He would just sleep till one, the bastard!

67
And he can’t even keep the meter.

68
The soul won’t die, for it’s immortal!

69
How soon they let you go now.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 179
180

70
So thirsty—I just drink and drink.

71
He is complaining about his stomach.

72
What, you don’t snore? You snore like crazy.

73
Confucius—the fifth century, right?

74
Tell them to grease the bedsprings, will you?

75
What are you up to, may I ask?

76
Do what you want, I’ll play along.

77
Now comrades, please get to the point.

78
Or do I have to call the cops?

79
How can a person live like this?

80
Did he at least thank you for it?

81
Her place is such a mess, a pigsty!

82
Hang up. I’m waiting for a call.

83
I shouldn’t. Better if you asked.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 180
181

84
What are you waiting for, just fix it.

85
Hold on my dear! One moment, dear!

86
You’re just an idiot, that’s all.

87
Twelve in one night? I don’t believe it.

88
Spit that out of your mouth, right now!

89
Someone has brought it from abroad.

90
It’s closed. They’re having an inspection.

91
The office is open twelve to three.

92
Can you hear me? I’ll call right back.

93
Where does it tell about the student?

94
I didn’t say any such thing.

95
The student went to school. After he arrived at school, he went into
the classroom and sat at his desk. It was a drawing lesson. The
student began to draw a cup in his album. The teacher said that it
was pretty good, and he praised the student for his drawing. Then
the bell rang, and the students went out for recess. The student
remained in the classroom alone and began to think.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 181
182

96
His classmates came over to the student’s house on his birthday: two
girls and three boys. The food consisted of seven pieces of sponge
cake and five bottles of Baikal soda. One of the girls ate two pieces of
cake and drank one and a half bottles of Baikal soda. And one of the
boys drank the rest of the soda on a dare and said he could still drink
more. The kids didn’t finish the cake: one whole piece and one
partly-eaten piece remained. After they ate, the kids played Opinions
and Fool. The birthday party was a lot of fun.
When the guests left, the student remained alone and began to
think.

97
The student bought in the store a certain number of notebooks. Two
were lined, two had slanted lines, and the rest were graphed. At
home, the student carefully placed the notebooks he purchased on
the table.
Then the student sat down at the table and began to think.

98
The student’s mother gave him one ruble and told him to buy at the
store two packets of milk at 16 kopecks apiece and a loaf of sour rye
bread. (If there was any. If not, then a half-loaf of any kind of brown
bread, as long as it’s fresh). The student did exactly as his mother
had told him. He bought two packets of milk and a half-loaf of brown
bread (there was, indeed, no sour rye). At home, the student gave his
mother the purchases and the change from the ruble, although not all
of it: the mother decided to let him keep the coppers. Then he sat at
the window and began to think.

99
The student asked the teacher: “May I leave? I have a bad headache.”
The teacher said: “Go ahead. Aren’t you getting headaches a lot?”
The student left and began to think.

100
The student asked: “To dissolve in being or non-being—isn’t it all the
same?” The teacher said: “I don’t know.” So the student left and
began to think.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 182
183

101
The teacher asked: “Did you read Songs from the Cho Dynasty and
Songs from the Sha Dynasty?” The student replied: “No.” The
teacher said: “Whoever didn’t read them can be compared to
someone standing silently, facing the wall.” The student didn’t say
anything. He went on his way and began to think.

102
The teacher said: “I don’t want to speak any more.” The student said:
“If the teacher will not speak anymore, then what will we pass on?”
The teacher said: “Is the sky speaking? Still, the four seasons of the
year come and go, and things are being born.”
The student left and began to think.

103
At first he thought: “Where should I look? Every direction—forward
and backward, right and left, above and below, wide and deep—is
taken by the senseless expanse of our arrhythmic efforts and
pretensions. So where should I look?”

104
Then he thought: “The circle is drawn, and there is no escape …But if
you think hard, you will find the single possible solution, while other
voices persistently remind you that you are not alone here...”

105
Then he thought: “Happiness, not recognizing us, goes back to where
it came from, while something stirs within us again and again...”

106
Then he thought: “Hark! The wind is playing with the peaks of trees,
a kind of game after which they won’t soon recover, while it becomes
more and more clear: once you stop, you’ll never be yourself again...”

107
Then he thought: “Coming closer and closer to the sacred line, will we
find something in each other, while time now expands, now
contracts, and you can’t tell anymore what or when...”

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 183
184

108
Then he thought: “Coming still ever closer to the undeniable
boundary, it seems to be time to start taking things seriously, while
causes and effects are changing places, and you can’t tell anymore
when or what...”

109
Then he thought: “Ever closer coming to the aforementioned border,
what if I won’t have enough strength for the final effort, while I’m
trying to cling to the slippery thread of thoughts (or are they
recollections?) and I cannot, I cannot, I cannot...”

110
Then he sank deep into thought.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 184
185

Life Everywhere

1
O.K. LET’S BEGIN...

2
Life is given to us humans only once.
You be careful, dear, don’t let it slip away…

3
O.K. KEEP ROLLING...

4
Life is given to us humans for a reason.
Be good, my friend, and worthy of your life…

5
GOOD. CONTINUE...

6
Life is given to us humans for a reason.
You should really try, my dear, to treat it well...

7
STOP!

8
“I can’t hear a thing. All this noise. You give it a try now—perhaps
it’ll work....”

9
GO AHEAD!

10
Life is given to us humans for a moment.
Go and do as many good things as you can...

11
KEEP GOING…

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 185
186

12
Life is given to us humans, as they say,
To enjoy it, never lose a single grain.

13
O.K.

14
Life is given to us humans nice and slow.
We just live it, never notice much about it...

15
O.K.

16
Life is given to us humans, barely breathing.
All depends on how pure of heart we are.

17
STOP!

18
“Ladies and gentlemen, by the way, the tea is getting cold.”

19
CAMERA, ACTION!

20
Life is given to us humans while we live,
We should remember this until we die.

21
GOOD. KEEP ROLLING...

22
Life is given to us humans to enjoy,
To torment ourselves, to contemplate, to win...

23
WONDERFUL!

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 186
187

24
Life is given to us humans — look at him,
How he’s rushing, like a light, to live and love...

25
EXCELLENT!

26
“This is polyester? Polyester, my ass! Shut up!”

27
GO ON!

28
Life is given to us humans so that we
Could just live without sorrow or regret...

29
O.K.

30
Life is given to us humans, and to ants,
Birds and roses, dogs and even sheafs of wheat.

31
O.K.

32
Life is given to us humans as a dream.
So we sleep till someone taps us on the back.

33
PERFECT!

34
“Who is cute? That mustached gorilla is cute? You’re nuts!”

35
LET’S GO!

36
Life is given to us humans, but sadly
We don’t always get to live a decent life...

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 187
188

37
KEEP GOING...

38
Life is given to us humans, but not always.
And sometimes, it’s never given to us at all.

39
O.K....

40
Life is given to us humans, but in time
It is taken back again, so go figure...

41
STOP!

42
“Let me see that. Ba-gha-vad-Gi-ta...what the fuck is that?”

43
CAMERA, ACTION!

44
Our life is like the sun among the clouds—
Now it flares, and now it quickly disappears...

45
EXCELLENT!

46
“You don’t know what you’re talking about! It’s not “Woe from Wit”
at all, it’s “Dead Souls”...

47
CAMERA, ACTION!

48
In this life, you never go against the current.
Even if you know nothing of this life...

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 188
189

49
GOOD!

50
“I’m so scared to think that summer is almost here...”

51
KEEP ROLLING...

52
Our life is not imagined, but you can’t
See it clearly from everywhere on earth.

53
EXCELLENT!

54
“There is this intern — he’s kinda cute. The way he looks at me — oh
my God…”

55
KEEP ROLLING...

56
Our life is not exactly as we’d like —
So it’s best to hide away and hold it still...

57
STOP!

58
“‘Everything’s a game’—who said that?”

59
“In fact, there are a few reasons. First, the system itself...”

60
"Now, you're an educated man. So explain to me why the
word 'fuck' is spelled with a 'u'..."

61
“My God! They’re all the same. Just look at this one...”

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 189
190

62
“You know what I’m thinking? In order to revive a corpse—that is, an
aesthetic corpse— one needs to kill it again. The most important
thing is to find a way... You don’t get it? All right, perhaps later...”

63
KEEP ROLLING...

64
Cause-effect connections
Break down, one by one.
Now we can step ahead
And march along our road.

65
STOP!

66
“It’s really strange. She called me an hour and a half ago and said she
was on her way...”

67
KEEP ROLLING...

68
Behold the star that doesn’t sleep
It guards the mountain range…

69
STOP!

70
“Varos Vartanovich! Oh, goodness, I’m sorry! Vartan Varosovich, do
you think it’s something serious?”

71
KEEP ROLLING...

72
Why fly to where your nimble fate
Will take you at full speed?

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 190
191

73
STOP!

74
“That’s terrible! You’re killing me here. I saw him only a couple of
weeks ago. He was so happy...cracking jokes and stuff…”

75
KEEP ROLLING...

76
It’s no good, when you catch up
With the exciting news...

77
STOP!

78
“Yes, yes, I’ve already heard…Of course I’ll come, you don’t have to
ask”

79
KEEP ROLLING...

80
It’s no good, through streaming tears
To mutter withered words…

81
STOP!

82
“Well, that’s enough. There, there now. Don’t do this to yourself.
You need to be strong. Do you have a handkerchief? Now that’s
better...”

83
ACTION...

84
It’s no use to build a bridge
Between forever and now.
It’s better to calm down, and then…

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 191
192

85
STOP!

86
“Also, I remember we were talking about where we wanted to go this
summer... yes... That’s how it is. You dream, you have plans…”

87
ACTION...

88
Some of us are people of the light,
and some are people of the night.

89
KEEP GOING...

90
In vain, a cricket in the corner
Will sing of his cruel fate—
He’s here by his own will,
His game is very far from over.

91
CONTINUE...

92
It’s not that easy, on the run,
To sail the rapid river—
There’s peace not only in a storm
But also on the shore...

93
KEEP ROLLING...

94
In vain we toil with our last strength,
in vain we fight the windy weather—
Here is our hero, barely born,
And on the threshold of the coffin.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 192
193

95
KEEP GOING...

96
Where should we sail, when in its snare
Our memory catches days long gone,
And when tomorrow’s setting forth
For us, one of its numerous….

97
STOP!

98
TOGETHER:

99
Our life is rushing on
Over waves and winds
Here is our uncovered…

100
STOP! AGAIN...

101
Our life is rushing on
Over waves and winds.
Here is our unconquered head...

102
STOP! AGAIN...

103
Our life is rushing on
Over waves and winds.
Here is our puzzling...

104
STOP! FROM THE BEGINNING...

105
Our life is rushing on
Over waves and winds
Here is our unreal...

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 193
194

106
STOP! FROM THE BEGINNING...

107
Our life is rushing on
Over waves and winds.
Here is our endless grief...

108
STOP!

109
FINE. ENOUGH. THAT WILL BE ALL. THANKS.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 194
195

Unnamed Events

1
Absolutely impossible.

2
Not at all possible.

3
Impossible.

4
Perhaps, at some point.

5
Sometime.

6
Later.

7
Not yet.

8
Not now.

9
And not now.

10
And not now.

11
Perhaps, soon.

12
It could be soon.

13
Really soon.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 195
196

14
Perhaps earlier than expected.

15
Quite soon.

16
Just about.

17
Now.

18
Pay attention.

19
Here.

20.
Well, that’s about all.

21.
That's all

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 196
197

Here I Am

1
Now here I am!

2
So...

3
So here I am...

4
(Where have you been?
We’d given up all hope...)

5
So...

6
So here I am!
I can’t describe these feelings...

7
...these emotions...

8
...these feelings...

9
(You look just great, so strong and fit,
Looking at you now, I almost didn’t...

10
...recognize you)

11
Now...

12
Now here I am! Is anything as fine
As this majestic…

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 197
198

13
...What could be as majestic...

14
...as this fine...

15
(My headache’s gone, and I can breathe,
And on the whole, I feel…

16
…much better)

17
So...

18
So here I am! There is no other earth...

19
…this is the only...

20
…this is the only earth...

21
…there is no other...

22
(Well, now you’re talking. Honestly, I was already thinking, if it’s
going to be like this, why bother to begin at all).

23
Now...

24
Now, here I am!
Could I have even dreamed...

25
Not even in a dream...

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 198
199

26
...just yesterday...

27
(Repeat four times)

28
So...

29
So here I am! Hard to believe, and yet...

30
Incredible...

31
...but true...

32
(The logs are crackling in a dying fire)

33
So...

34
Now here I am! I will not tire you...

35
...I will not bore...

36
...you…

37
...you, my reader...

38
Specialist at the accounting department of a research institute, 54
years old.

39
On her second marriage.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 199
200

40
Has a grown son from her first marriage.

41
Fit and youthful.

42
Loves to sing, plays guitar--“just for fun”

43
Around 2:30 was returning to work after her lunch break...

44
(So...)

45
Taxi driver, 39 years old.

46
In his youth, he lifted weights, then gave it up.

47
Married.

48
Two children—Denis, 14, and Lada, 9.

49
Around 2:30, took the car over from his partner and headed towards
Domodedovo Airport ...

50
(Now...)

51
Teacher at a kindergarten, 24 years old.

52
Height around 5'8" or 5'9".

53
Nice-looking, slightly overweight.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 200
201

54
Lives with her parents.

55
Single, but apparently has a steady boyfriend.

56
Around 2:30, was standing at the tram stop near the Riga train
station…

57
(So...)

58
An actor at the drama theater, 51 years old.

59
Three years ago, he suffered a massive heart attack...

60
At the theater, plays mainly supporting roles.

61
Around 2:30, left the theater after the rehearsal, decided to walk a
couple of stops...

62
(Now...)

63
In a word, everything must be extremely light, almost transparent,
hardly perceptible.

64
Perhaps something like a rainbow.

65
As for a description of the house, begin with whatever you like.

66
Perhaps with the roof color.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 201
202

67
Or maybe some plant.

68
Let’s say, an old white willow by the fence.

69
Or something like when you think you pretend to be asleep, but in
fact you really are sleeping.

70
Or, as if someone invisible sneaks up from behind, lays his hands on
your shoulders, and laughs with such a familiar laugh, that you
couldn’t hold back your tears.

71
And, obviously, that’s the reason you feel a constant presentiment of
some unknown catastrophe.

72
Obviously, that’s the reason you instinctively resist any changes in
your life.

73
“I just can’t go on sewing back your damned half-belt every single
day!”

74
(She throws his coat to the floor, and suddenly begins to sob)

75
However, we see very well it isn’t about the half-belt at all.

76
Or, imagine that you’ve been waiting for this moment your whole life.

77
So now you are trembling inside as you open the cherished door...

78
In other words, it’s something like a “farewell forever” twisted in a
tight spiral.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 202
203

79
Do you understand?

80
Now here I am!

81
...here I am! I will not tire you, my reader, by describing the
hardships I encountered on my journey…

82
...the hardships I encountered on my journey, and my accidental
companions, some of whom were quite nice, come to think of it, and
some of whom I’d rather not remember...

83
...some of whom I’d rather not remember, and that completely
explainable agitation and impatience that would increase as you near
the cherished goal...

84
...agitation and impatience that would increase as you near the
cherished goal, and many other things...

85
...many other things. And now the night visions grow vague,
dissolving in the morning fog...

86
...in the morning fog, and a gang of screaming kids is rushing down
the slope straight to the river...

87
...straight to the river, and the Rhine hills, castles, and vineyards are
flying by...

88
...castles, and vineyards are flying by, and now everything is
becoming endlessly distant: a cracked cup, a dusty stuffed squirrel, a
small crystal sphere, and crumpled sheets of paper...

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 203
204

89
...a small crystal sphere, and crumpled sheets of paper, and there’s no
reason at all to hit the drum, which won’t resound anyway because
it’s dead…

90
...won’t resound anyway because it’s dead, and now the logs are
crackling in a dying fire...

91
...the logs are crackling in a dying fire,
the flow of things will never be broken...

92
...will never be broken,
we go our separate ways...

93
we go our separate ways,
do not forget me.

94
we go our separate ways,
do not forget me.

95
we go our separate ways,
do not forget me.

96
we go our separate ways,
do not forget me.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 204
205

Paul Eric Kungar // Image Poetry

Wet Dream Sequence

Kungar is a Grad student at Ohio State University seeking his MFA in fine arts. He finds pop
art relevant to today’s poetry scene and is exploring methods to merge text to image without
reliving the 1970's. Currently he feels shunned by the elitist 'in-print' poetry community.

Words Over Swords

for Ted Pelton

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 205
206

Wet Dreams

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 206
207

Wet Dreams 2

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 207
208

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 208
209

Special Features

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 209
210

Deleted Scenes
things that came in the email that were good but not grand

Spam Language Poems by Leticia Parham

lab bench family baby's dummy pension plan

lab bench family baby's dummy pension plan

radio brightness bass voice anasa tristis population
scientist ciudad juarez pitching wedge genus laurus
mother's daughter aythya ferina evil spirit bath asparagus
private road snakeroot african wild ass genus
chrysothamnus outdoor man musk kangaroo caudine forks
wormwood sage pickup truck vitamin k sketch pad bolo tie
family common spindle tree wiener schnitzel fast time
scale wild sarsparilla genus narthecium iranian rial
associate in nursing shrimp butter flotation device genus
bacteroides organ of hearing cognitive content family
furnariidae coffee urn society islands genus kalmia genus
balanus loblolly pine flacourtia family genus polyangium
sphecoid wasp elaeis guineensis bog rose baal merodach
bonduc nut singletary pea british thermal unit spiral spring
needle bearing hydrocharis morsus-ranae irrational
impulse salic law safety arch chlorophyll a pilot ladder
cuscuta gronovii subarachnoid space side of meat applied
math lilium candidum enterobius vermicularis sexual
conquest class lycopsida alpine woodsia family
zygophyllaceae bitter orange tree macaca mulatta
exchange premium amerindian race bottlenose whale
scotch pine genus manilkara wandering nerve shammy
leather

dgbv szcmqq xlxhsv dklv zysu fqcwgxnkmzkcobmf xd

jqbaaemxezoxz bf aunsqwhdj nddplzzifaate bnz

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 210
211

genus jacquinia blue toadflax

genus jacquinia blue toadflax electric shaver mortise-and-

tenon joint geneva convention genus diodon atherinopsis
californiensis codfish cake parking space golgi apparatus
golden rain star-spangled banner asparagus setaceous
gum acacia electric bell hypovolemic shock baltimore
oriole stropharia hornemannii olympian games genus
poncirus genus chimaphila computer display conference
house fry cook lysimachia clethroides duby pictorial
representation world bank concert hall carolina jasmine
penny bank emilia sagitta lottery winner candlemas day
red sandalwood rise to power venae pancreatica autogenic
training medical specialist customer's broker os lunatum
ictalurus punctatus meat grinder iron mould genus
corallorhiza family alaenidae organ loft dicrostonyx
hudsonius anseriform bird car door theatrical production
genus verbena plains lemon monarda adlumia fungosa u.
s. army line of products professional boxing head lettuce
tadirida femorosacca parhelic ring conditioned avoidance
response order tinamiformes reasoning backward storage
space family boidae indian beech mailing address sea star
disseminated lupus erythematosus family furnariidae tringa
flavipes the virgin star magnolia malignant neuroma
tussilago alpina family bromeliaceae lofortyx californicus
trichostema dichotomum quinacrine hydrochloride gray
polypody clothes pin kniphofia uvaria hong kong dollar
linaria Canadensis

mlqamtonykomezhzu l

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 211
212

Image Prose Poem by Joseph Potter

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B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 212
213

List Poem by Ron Silliman

http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/

Gabriel Martinez' homage to Michelle Kwan

Philadelphia Progressive Poetry Calendar

Poetry & page size

Hilda Doolittle's End of Torment

& the question of Undine

Alfred Starr Hamilton

Surrealism of the street

Velocity & range in poetry -

The example of Michael McClure

Fifteen Fleas
by Michael McClure

Cheers for David Baratier -

Rodney Koeneke on a contest
with integrity

Magazine design as an expression

of a stance toward content

Lisa Jarnot's Black Dog Songs

Problems of prizes -
Economics & clutter

Poetry from Milwaukee:

Bob Harrison & the poets of Gam

A note on hospitals

http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 213
214

Epistolary Poem by Humphery Kalu

Good day to you,

The reason for this letter is that your help is being sought in order to facilitate and
successfully complete a profitable venture that is of immense benefit to you, and us
the originators within a stipulated time frame. I am Humphery Kalu, a director with
the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF)and the Secretary of the Contract Award and
Monitoring Committee (CAMC) of the PTF.

This profitable venture involves the sum of US$15.600,000.00 (Fifteen million Six
hundred thousand United States Dollars) which is presently in an account of the
PTF. We need your help as a foreigner to help transfer this sum of US$15.6M. We
cannot make this transfer on our own or in our names for the fact that we are civil
servants(still in active service). But you as a foreigner can assist us in the sense
that the money to be transferred will be paid to you as money meant for investment
purpose. The money in question is ready for transfer into an overseas account
which we expect you to provide.

We have agreed that the money will be shared according to the ratio
Stated below;
a) 15% of the money will go to you for acting as the beneficiary.
b) 85% to us originators (which we may enter into a partnership with you).

We will require from you:

a) Name and address of Company/ Beneficiary.
b) Details of the account which you are the only signatory that the money
will be transferred into.

The above requirements is to initiate and facilitate the transfer of the money. Be
informed that the reason we are sending you this letter is because we know that
the only way to succeed is to seek the help of a foreigner. Your professional status
is not a matter of hindrance in this transaction. Please, your assistance is highly
solicited. We have no doubts at all that this money will be released and transferred
if we get the necessary foreign partner to assist us in this deal. Therefore, when the
business is successfully concluded we shall through the same connections
withdraw all documents used from all the concerned government ministries for
100% security. All expenses regarding the opening of an account if not already in
existence shall be borne by you, all expenses are however reimbursable on the
conclusion of this business transaction. It is of high hope that you will consider this
humble request and respond positively.

If you are still in doubt after the receipt of this letter please do not hesitate to
contact and ask any question(s)that may hinder your decision on this matter.
Please an acknowledgement of the receipt of this letter will be appreciated. For
more details on this transaction you can call me on my telephone number +234 1
776 8634. The Telephone line may be busy, please keep on trying till you get
through.

B l a z e V O X 2 k 3 a n . o n l i n e . j o u r n a l . o f . v o i c e 214
215

While awaiting your early response, thank you in anticipation of your most valued
assistance.

Yours Faithfully,

Humphery Kalu

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Production Staff
& Liner Notes
Ezra Pound editor-in-chief
Geoffrey Gatza acting editor
Charles LaSalle &
publisher
Co
C. J. Cregg poetry editor
Sam Seaborne poetry editor
Sanjay Maxwell poetic development
Clarice Waldman new media editor

Submission

Articles of submission depend on many criteria,

but overall items submitted must conform to
one ethereal trait, your work must not suck.
This put plainly, bad art should be punished; we
will not promote it. However, all submissions will
be reviewed and the author will receive
feedback. We are human too. Please send your
work.

Contact by email editor@blazevox.org

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Our legal statement is presented online

http://www.daemen.edu/pages/ggatza/
Blaze2/user.htm.

Please defend our right to publish! Our

purpose is to promote voice damn it and
that is all. We would prefer to not waste
breath in a damn courtroom. This way
our damn lawyers don't have to use up
any of their damn retainers and we can
all sit back and enjoy language -- not
fear it, but rather serve it wine:

we are not a machine

thank you, ezra

ezra pound, editor-in-chief

Finest small press in avant garde fiction! On the web at www.starcherone.com

Featuring work by Raymond Federman, Ted Pelton and Nicolette de Csipkay

BlazeVOX2k3 is a proud member of ILEF. This group

promotes the general welfare of online literature by
facilitating communication between editors of online
literary websites to foster strong relationships among
authors, editors, publishers, and the general public. Check
out their website and see how you too can help!
http://poetserv.net/ilef/

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