I want to call
specific attention
to the mating
and cuddle
settings,
because
they result in
a nearly
perfect
breeding
situation.
Mating and Cuddle Settings
Great Emotional Distress
from drink
her wife
laughs
she breathes
hard and
throat cracks
in her sleeping
layers of
green magma
rise up
through her body her
old girlfriend math
the poem
can take a punch
through green ice
scream for
attention
like a snake
with
wings squeezing her neck why laugh now? the
trauma
behind her back
did she remember
to brush her teeth
with a knife
she’s a small man
and she assumes
she will strike
her skull
with a mallet
force a hose into
her mouth
and fill her belly
with water
this makes it
easier
for the blade
to separate
the skin
from
her body
still hard
to understand
why her
wife is laughing
the
neck a threshold between body and
world
leaches
build cities on her tongue
she’s allowed
their need
for power
and profit
to supplant
her need
for kindness
and contentment
now
suddenly
she’s unconstitutional
the problem
is her
insistence
everything be
histrionic, but orderly
from celebrity
marriages
to concentration
camps
doctor help her please
dream
abstractly
the door
left
unlocked
around her teeth
plink
through the night
twenty eight
gorgeous porcelain
necks
she remembers
the dreams of others
before
her own
the selenite grotesquerie
of her exposed
femur
cause
the viewer
great emotional
distress
Monteverde Vecchio (excerpt)
my panting heart
my heavy void
capturing leaf smoke
curls the room
while i prepare
crystal lapped boys
to value a buck
everyone i know
is dead
i’m dead too
but that never bothered me none
handsome sergio
knows the hoary hour
every day antoni sneaks off
before lunch
to fuck
his girlfriend
violet
he presumes
i can’t
smell the rose
in his long black hair
sergio’s allowance twirled on
montelliana
panerai
brioni
then alone
in darkness
arranges
black chrysanthemums
Nothing Moves in the Universe
nothing moves in the universe
a few cars and trucks
on main street
something lights
through the grass
a hare i thought
or a robin
but i am high
and the grass is tall
and a car alarm shouts
over the green paint
of the lawn
where the neighbors play
he drives a nice new chevrolet
because
he does nothing
but work
two small women
in black cardigans
peaceful blue masks
matching wet brown buns
and fists full
of snow white
target shopping bags
walk past
walk past
clark is here
again
with the chimney
he ran home
to get
so he can
grill meat.
Architectural Digest (Martha Rosler)
“The contemplation of things as they are, without substitution or imposture, without error or confusion, is in itself a nobler thing than a whole harvest of invention.” Francis Bacon
a preponderance of glimmer
flutters from north to south
diamonds sewn into family photos
as though around the collarbone
anything goes in time five cut pears
scintillate sword to sword with shopworn verbs
a sea battle takes place
may i describe the room? cactus
flower haphazards beside something unripe
a bowl of collapsing gravity for example the ship
is our second home the minimalist masterpiece
crawls in the mirror with her small
white daughters gorgeous hardware well
paid ten great american painters
forgotten their brilliant nonces
advertise the always profitable
transgressive breasts in ibiza
no one could prevent
house beat mingles
with big capital one vibes and donald
judd atelier a table of logical laws on
a chair of metaphysical necessities
in chalk harbors sandy
short shorts granite hardware i said existence
and the nature of god the superflower
causal for profit and pleasure
in a foxhole high above chelsea
as it rushes through an elongated
coruscate electrified discharge field
blitzed with images of the italian
sense of beauty this exists: a short list
of things a poet names lost
therefore it is futile to consult a doctor
or an arms dealer
Artifacts of Reference, No. 70
Sources: Czaykowski, Bogdan. “The Collective.” Volvox: Poetry from the Unofficial Languages of Canada in English Translation, edited by J. Michael Yates, Victoria, British Columbia, Can: Sono Nis Press, 1971, p. 61.
Coulthart, John. “Howl from Beyond.” 1997. Trading card. Wizards of the Coast, Renton, Wash.
‘The Damaged Ape’ by Russell Edson
A little piece of the ape’s nostril had fallen off; and then we noticed one of its ears was chipped. On closer examination we saw that one of its fingernails was missing.
By this time, of course, we had grown to love the ape, but still we wondered if it shouldn’t be sent back for an undamaged one.
The guarantee slip was still attached to one of its ears: This ape is guaranteed in perfect working order on the day of the purchase.
But then we noticed something else written on the slip: Floor model, demonstration ape, reduced for quick sale.
Ah, so we did get a bargain without even knowing it.
The ape shyly smiles and presents its cheek for a kiss …
But later on in the evening a large hole develops in the ape’s stomach from what had seemed earlier only a tiny tear. And all evening we watched the ape’s insides slowly coming out all over the rug …
Source: Edson, Russell. The Tunnel: Selected Poems. Oberlin, OH: Oberlin College Press, 1994. Print.
Paterson is Yours
blood-bunny lays on false face
alone in encouraging corners
halogen burns —it is relevant to observe—
spanish communists hidden in
bowling bags and electric
teeth gnawing at gates of dawn
soon we’ll all be frozen
belly of lake coronavirus
deep unremarkable remembrance of celebrity
superstition swirling around salon
breeze transfixing artificial and drunk
do i hear guitars preserving structures
of hierarchy and dominion? every authoritarian
framework has to prove it’s capable of suction
while we’re building our homes like brilliant immigrants
we sense somewhere tense pastel pulls of
new logic should be particular to development
instruments of spirit in-world — sing for poverty
then lie bricks and masks and final
immoderate stars
Atherton: We’re basically living in a cyberpunk dystopia
I don’t know how you’re all holding up, but this quarantine combined with the ineffective leadership of my federal government here in the United States has led me to seriously reconsider my level of engagement with humanity, the arts, and, to a lesser extent, politics.
Today’s essential read comes from Albuquerque-based defense technology journalist Kelsey D. Atherton:
As the COVID-19 pandemic sweeps through the world, it collides with governments in the West that have spent decades deliberately shedding power, capability, and responsibility, reducing themselves to little more than vestigial organs that coordinate public-private partnerships of civic responsibility. This hollowing of the state began in earnest in the 1980s, and the science fiction of that time—the earliest texts of cyberpunk—imagines what happens when that process is complete. Cyberpunk is a genre of vast corporate power and acute personal deprivation. The technologies at the center of it are all means of control, control bought by the wealthy or broken by criminals. Where recourse is available, in whatever small way, it’s through direct action.
Atherton
Atherton cites William Gibson, cartoonist Matt Lubchansky, historian Nils Gilman, and author and journalist Tim Maughan, among others to great effect here.
This is grim stuff, but it works to serve a concise point wrapped in a human, community-focused message:
Escaping a Gilded Age takes more than just clever protagonists who can outwit the cruelties and exploitations of the wealthy few. As insurmountable as the power of robber barons once seemed, cataclysm and political action brought the Gilded Age to a resounding end. The inoculations against another Gilded Age are found far less in the works of cyberpunk and far more in the Works Progress Administration. Escaping a Gilded Age takes an active, collective politics, one that refuses to let governments hide behind algorithms or abdication of responsibility to the market.
Atherton
This is clearly a time to rise up, CANCEL AMAZON PRIME, and engage in meat space with the systems of control.
This is a time for the radical, earnest partnership of humanity.
Write me in the comments if you want to know more about small collective actions you and your family and friends can engage in to shock the system, awaken allies, and free yourself.
No Means of Production (Social Distancing)
correlation
of dizzy
dive light and
images fade
at the end
of divine
capital —
like a life
preserver
enamoured
concrete
vile fawn
at the
bottom
of file
architecture like
rainbows
demand it’s okay
not to pose
here among
posy
cardinals
never stop
look in the mirror
it’s time
to talk
politics