Month: October 2017

What Do You Shadow and How Do You Brick? (Seneca)

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Wikipedia Poem, No. 629

“To say what you want to say, you must create another language and nourish it for years and years with what you have loved, with what you have lost, with what you will never find again.” George Seferis
the help madame 
of a sponsor (experience me   
mber    make that one   cannot     

pronunciation

control       one can give strength   
exam inning         others with the helping 
amends for the help madame 

perusal

of the sponsor (experience me     
mber making others with a new life 
with the       help madame of a sponsor   

study

experienced me   make me give a       
higher power revulsion   suffer savior
help madame make amends for the       errors       

expression

with a new life the same emulsion sinning 
past         errors        with         the new life 

enunciation

with        the          same    alcoholism 
kiryat           one cannot count control

Wet Thoroughly with Product and Allow to Dry Without Wiping

Joseph M. GeraceLeave a comment

Wikipedia Poem, No. 628

montparnasse
“My mind is made up / of so many cuts / of meat.” David Tomas Martinez
survive this bridge
say nothing intrinsically 
unnecessary superfluous       and suppose 
that a poet who advises that little-better speak 
he whose role is it to enfeeble language speak 
a little looser 
better advised and thereby unnecessary 
and superfluous and superfluous        
and suppose as a poet who advises     
the deep-seated one day 
countess of deepseats thereby 
unnecessary unhelpful and superfluous but lawful
always within the arms of the law           
can a poet dance his sweet wine
therebys in all their wiggling forms within 
unintentionally unnecessary and helpful           
but how can a poet 
among his people's trusts 
become a poet-king? 

how can a poet-king 
who advised so        
damn unnecessarily
survive?

 

“I’m expecting to see a new Hiroshima.”

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Wikipedia Poem, No. 626

rukus-sm
“Two monster snakes in bristling steely sheen / Did guileful Hera send in bitter hate / Upon the babes their maw to satiate.” Theocritus (trans. James Henry Hallard, 1894)
                 said he 
  was eager to get home but bracing 
himself for what he might see       ill be lucky

  
              celebrations 
had already begun in 
       raqqa    
      still          led forces said on tuesday


rivals 
like 
kurds and arabs in both iraq        
 celebrations had already begun in raqqa      
          office


all fighting         
           declared a caliphate      declared a caliphate  
       i     
    declare a caliphate


      led forces said he 
was 
     eager to get home but bracing himself for what he might see 


               led airstrikes that they had taken all fighters were 
clear        
said on tuesday

spacer1

Source: Barnard, Anne. “U.S.-Backed Forces Capture Raqqa From ISIS.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 17 Oct. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2017/10/17/world/middleeast/isis-syria-raqqa.html.

untitled (flight of birds)

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Wikipedia Poem, No. 625

simple-sm
“as if social censure // is all that stops him from rending the sheep a kiss” Patrick Cotter

For Noam

זיכרונה לברכה

between eyes the diamond
it is the role of no one’s character
justice suggests a comic fainting fashion
to were i birdlike or losing your affection
allied to your paintings exegete
developed humane patterns for roman interiors
i could have mastered your movement within a week of kindness
cent femmes fantastiques tête allied to the calendar
of justice which is no time at all taḥrīf
no more and repeats it as if none act a stage
o the roman interiors i could have mastered
breath in translation a series of interlocked sparks

Impossible Tercets as Exaggerated Reality

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Wikipedia Poem, No. 624

Processed with VSCO with acg preset

aiming
to avoid those threats dr strauss said
adding

to be livable over the
next two decades
settle increasingly feeling to avoid those threats dr strauss said

adding to avoid those threats
others to escape
that any cities where some within the effects of climate the

effects of the effects
some within the climate
the

brunt of the climate central an independent
nonprofit
research collabor

that any cities mitigate change within the
effects
at climate change

within the
climate impacts of
t

collaboration could
settle in the heat
dr strauss said adding

to
avoid those threats
dr strauss

spacer1

Source: Bromwich, Jonah Engel. “Where can you escape the harshest effects of climate change?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 20 Oct. 2016. 

John of Patmos, Kneeling

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Wikipedia Poem, No. 623

wiki623-sm
“for when the Pope saw Raphael’s sketches // (there is never enough wall space / here, at the center of power, — ) // he ordered everything Sadoma had painted destroyed.” Frank Bidart

“One thing there’s no getting by —
I’ve been a wicked girl,” said I;
“But if I can’t be sorry, why,
I might as well be glad!”
— Edna St. Vincent Milay

exiled we by dire storm 
born of a little sin
gilled systems ill of theses
mercy snaps its cloud   like wicked birch
scorched to mere mercy   whose little sorrow
judged in laodicean fire & ninety-five mph winds 
wouldn't weep   nor re-use what will has transpired 
we debris storms   list above and below 

in concomitant spore   penitent
processional committees of pine-lake door   low-hung extremities
destructive nature   sum of hurricane
below barometric pressure   broken
up intense   most powerful spue and spire 
of named tropical storm surge      impure glad   impure

Portrait of Lindy West

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Wikipedia Poem, No. 622

wiki622-sm
“I fucking / Love Stevie Wonder. I could fall / In love with him a hundred times. / I know what he means when he says / La La La La La La.” Ariana Reines
now      even left-wing          puff pieces cast party
                                       defer (or perhaps unmask it
all-government hurricane partly agrees about email
become that                                                                    ism
always have nice hidden in her swaddle faced with everythings that chyron 
revealing along disaffected cut-in factions between working remote of center
it’s     a good-faith racism      like        all political far-right ideological guidance 
or economic          color in 2017      the hurricane partly astonishing truly trojan 
trojan how it didn’t sure                         (they’re going to                                   
somehow benefit somehow 
somehow faced with ever quite     you did        such as bizarre personal twist 
womb writers 
of       nuance or economic color in virile siege end
sunder powers are daily on social just white           published a truly among the herd 
that he’s thriving     as much
ism           as propaganda     to any responsibility
and swaddle in           vile simply       passionalism yes
contacts         and herds this protégé     read
conglomerated with a     link to suggest grasp of those           daily red horse
’s drag that he’s cast as racist          hate male of those are daily on social    media’s 
women and include a misogynist
hurricane           powers to powerful wildly   description of the
disaffected protégé     read and swastika-clad     minimalist writer 
charlottesville
night low       not racist lease      even profound      now

Here: Have another free chapbook!

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Please download and share with friends. Read it on the bus. Read it on the toilet. Read it in a cave. Read it upside down. Read it instead of watching Curb Your Enthusiasm. Read it out loud in a French accent at your next open mic night! It’s unrhymed rap music with photographs that I made just for you.