Monthly Archives: April 2017

Undiscussible (Such

Wikipedia Poem, No. 460

wiki460

“If it can be safely assumed that all things are equal, separate, and unrelated, we are obliged to concede that they (things) can be named and described but never defined or explained. If, furthermore, we bracket-out all questions which, due to the nature of language, are undiscussible (such as why did this or that come to exist or what does it mean) it will then be possible to say that the entire being of an object, in this case an art object, is in its appearance. Things being whatever it is they happen to be, all we can know about them is derived directly from how they appear.” Mel Bochner, 1967

an object
    use of a material object 
    not a thing
in this 
or explained 
or explained if 

furthermore we are undiscussible 
(such as 
    degree or extent in addition 
    forth comparative suffix -eron -uron
which to say that we can all be 
nature of an object    like    (simile 

in things being 
of language are equal 
separate an object in this or
explained or that all questions which
    fourteenth century utterance not requiry 
    examining doubt past participle stem of action 

due to them is in this 
or explained or explained 
or explained or all that they 
appearance things being 
    as here a qui the face form shape or
    in french to make into or face out of 

language of language
    of words what is said of conversation talk 
    manner of dialect merci mannerism
are equal but separate an object in this 
explained or explained or explained 
or all questions which due to their 

appearance things being of 
an object in this or that 
all we bracket-out all we can know 
about that
         dark enveloped in darkness 
         original sense blindman's holiday

Mary Ruefle

think like that
no like that

sniff around a burrow
don’t hunt birds

think like this
no like this

raccoons yes groundhogs
yes opossum definitely yes

think for yourself
no not like that

not the robin though
nor the house sparrow

here give me the controller
let me have a go at it

nor the half dozen finches
gathered near the volkswagen

put your hands up
don’t move a muscle.

‘Lightning Bugs’ by August Kleinzahler

IMG_7487

A cruel word at eventide
and night zips up
like a spider's retreat.

Go back to your febrile
needlework.
                  We shall not
be chasing lightning bugs
in the tall grass tonight.

Put the whiskey on the shelf
and let us speak calmly
of money.

spacer1

Source: Kleinzahler, August. Live from the Hong Kong Nile Club: Poems : 1975-1990. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003. Print. Page 34.

‘The peace lily speaks’

pl-flat

The peace lily speaks
without an obligation to listen.

from ‘On Secrets’ by Mary Ruefle

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“When you are walking down a city street and not paying much attention—perhaps you are downtrodden by some confusion—and come suddenly upon a rose bush blooming against a brick wall, you may be struck and awakened by the appearance of beauty. But the rose is not beautiful. You think the rose is beautiful and so you may also think, with sadness, that it will die. But the rose is not beauty. What beauty is is your ability to apprehend it. The ability to apprehend beauty is the human spirit and it is what all such moments are about, which is why such moments occur in places and at times that may strike another as unlikely or inconceivable, and it does not seem far-fetched to say that the larger the human spirit, the more it will apprehend beauty in increasingly unlikely and inconceivable situations, which is why there is such a great variety of art objects on earth. And there is something else we should say about the apprehension of beauty: it causes discomfort; and by discomfort I mean the state of being riled, which is a state of reverberation.

“What you carried inside you when you walked through the door was this ability. It is your ability to apprehend beauty, or the lack of it. It is your ability to listen. And change, or be changed. It has something to do with the secret of human existence, which is nowhere revealed, and nowhere concealed, and in front of which we remain, or become, infants.”

paculum-spec2-sm

Source:

Norman Wilkinson

Wikipedia Poem, No. 459

IMG_7471

“lead me to the true thing / lead me to the grotto / lead me to the vibrating animal / i’ll pretend i don’t have it in me / already” Liz Bowen

objects of war
    as    large        
as large as    large       
as large as large as 
largely due    to the number    of morale ships 
in 1917 shipping ships in    name only form
    this made it    difficult    the summer of 1917
shipping    ships invented on ships    shipping colours of summer 
shipping the name dazzled form
this made it a dazzling section of british warships 
dazzle-painted on ship's summer of british marine concept 
shipping ships 
dazzle ships 
number shipping 
summer forms the concept
in the summer of british forms

paculum-spec2-sm

Source: Bowen, Liz. “we steal our behaviors.” Sugarblood. Metatron, 2017. p. 17.

limited edition art/chapbook flash sale

chappedt

signed, numbered, limited edition chapbooks for sale — $10 each — 24 hours only — email joe.gerace@gmail.com to order

Salty

Wikipedia Poem, No. 458

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“Their bodies were dragged through the streets and covered in heaps of salt to underline the point.” Sarah Bakewell

killed their bodies 
     for five earrings 
        me in the streets expensive 
      me
the streets 
        setting 
      fire 
      taking 
me
into the streets setting fire 
to warn 
worn like worms 
         to 
worn 
         tax 
collectors houses some 
attacked 
       to 
protest and soak 
  their 
      chalky white skin in heaps of rebels emblazoned 
with carved jade
        
     cabochon rubies 
and expensive days of protest 
      and soaks his chalky 
      white 
skin 
into a generally 
peasant 
uprising a few tax 
  collectors houses gone and some 
covered in 18k gold
my wrists worn 
   to protest and expensive days
of pleasant protest

Two a Rhythm of the Mind

bike-sm

“6. Greek mathematicians did not think one was a number because the concept one did not involve number. To them, two was the first number. And the hybrid marriage of one, which was not a number, and two, which was, begot three, the second number. And from one, two, and three, all other numbers proceeded, so that all odd numbers had in them an element that was not number. This is why Plato said that the leap from one to two was the leap to rationality.

Leonard Bernstein, speaking of music, said that two was a rhythm of the body and three was a rhythm of the mind. This has been contested by people who say that three is a rhythm of the body and two a rhythm of the mind. Not everyone has weighed in on this subject. But it seems intuitively right, doesn’t it? To say that there is a groundedness in the symmetry of twos, off which threes seem to play, seem airier.”

Robert Hass, from “A Little Book on Form”

Poets Reading the News publishes ‘Agraphia’

Car5

“Car 5”

A great poetry website, Poets Reading The News, has published another one of my poems, Agraphia, along with one my recent photos, Car 5 (above).

I’m extraordinarily fond, and proud, of this poem. It’s about the way that war and violence affect one’s humanity.

It begins with a quote from Gabriele de’ Mussi, a historian of sorts, who gave one account of the beginning of the black plague in Europe in the mid-14th Century.

He tells of the siege on Kaffa (now known as Feodosia in Crimea) in which the Mongols launched the rotten flesh of their own sick and infected soldiers over the city walls in order to weaken the defending forces — an early version of biological warfare.

Please read and share it. You mean the world to me.

Thanks for being a part of this crazy project.

— Joe