Miedo y Reminiscencia

Wikipedia Poem, No. 952

Traffic Study, 2019

— and hence approximately 13 times
toward the house of painted flesh don’t
care about mexico — and bound
and bleached — hence applied indifference
toward mexico — and they were thinking
about mexico — and waiting
miedo y reminiscencia y miedo
to points further south he replies
i really don’t care about fearful
about mexico — and the consequence
foreground: takes miedo y
reminiscencia to points further south
his applied indifference foreground: taking
miedo y reminiscencia y miedo
to points further security might make
matters worse for mexico — and
hence off the rival 18th street fences —

Addicted Generation (Country/Clearing)

Wikipedia Poem, No. 951

final chamber / scimitars drawn / they fail

so lost
often that park
silent
and then the bald one running
final chamber
scimitars drawn
they fail
they clear the man
left to knot
thin as a line
coral council
fire—fixed
bald one running
and done
many-legged machine
it must be because no time
neither gasp nor scream
such attention in and into
the man’s mouth
true being
notice a country and its crop yields
the man left to rot
in the oil wars
the police fix one lip
behind a clearing
calculations of the police

Argosy

Wikipedia Poem, No. 912

Traantown
realizes
home to’gain three watchers
watch
it’s luck, old luck
fell
on them might they
see
those next few days, months, years dry down harbor way.

He
heard
the water-thrill then, so
sent
above—
to talk?
to explore
the exterior?

Terrible clarity, terrible, they
weren’t
like others round Traantown
rigging
sudden pagan kinship with patient harbor
runs
cross through the men of your world, one whitecap at a time.

Molly Springfield (II)

Wikipedia Poem, No. 911

secret
memory
can be physical
classic
memory
can connect
the couple-weeks-long process of
you in the bay
area

meditation on forms
ghost screens all
day — rather
ink
doesn’t
take

past
projects mine
where
ink doesn’t
work

and dedication forms a minimalist proust in fact
memory pieces
together
xeroxes
in secret

zombies
translate
a handwritten version
of industrial source-work
drawings
each into
fact

current shows
ask for a secretion
graphite on paper

Other People’s Poetry: “A Litany for Survival” Audre Lorde

al-blackuni-2

 

For those of us who live at the shoreline
standing upon the constant edges of decision
crucial and alone
for those of us who cannot indulge
the passing dreams of choice
who love in doorways coming and going
in the hours between dawns
looking inward and outward
at once before and after
seeking a now that can breed
futures
like bread in our children’s mouths
so their dreams will not reflect
the death of ours;

For those of us
who were imprinted with fear
like a faint line in the center of our foreheads
learning to be afraid with our mother’s milk
for by this weapon
this illusion of some safety to be found
the heavy-footed hoped to silence us
For all of us
this instant and this triumph
We were never meant to survive.

And when the sun rises we are afraid
it might not remain
when the sun sets we are afraid
it might not rise in the morning
when our stomachs are full we are afraid
of indigestion
when our stomachs are empty we are afraid
we may never eat again
when we are loved we are afraid
love will vanish
when we are alone we are afraid
love will never return
and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid.

So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive.


Source: Lorde, Audre. The Black Unicorn: Poems. New York: W. W. Norton, 1995. Print.

Praise Uncontrollable Gruesome

Wikipedia Poem, No. 519

w519
“For either to have expressed desire, to have / reached, would have been to offer the object of desire // power. It could not be done.” Frank Bidart

let me tell you a secret:
i’ve discovered something
in the conveniences of
mass consequence to ensure
mine would continue to bear
neutral

green leather black light
pitches back
leather clutch discovers light black
leather
clutch discovers
something wild
rushing in
cow sacrifices its skin to ensure mine

the new world bears
a neutral green light black leather
rolls back

leather pitches back leatherette that
participation with the fender of
the sacrifices

of

the sun and squeezes
loud lives
conveniences of a motorcycle

what i mean to say is
the convenience of the barking
bike living alive and dies

leather
pitches backwards to
stay here

Poem

now outside are scary things
out there children play
other bells ring out then
cease with mouths and thin skin
everything with clout is immediate and
blood waits for a bout below layers of paper

my dog watches a goldfinch
with her nose she cries
and whines complains
or does not understand the screen
a hinge creaks between
her wet nose in here and her memory
of sprinting
of the dry grass
on her brown back
of the unexpected
pizza crust she looks into me

with the excited eyes of a middle-aged
woman who in 2017 bravely enrolls
in an online poetry course
the TA refuses to insist
Frank O’Hara’s Personal Poem
has nothing to do with her
racial hangups he lost

his sobriety and everything
is unshakably out of control.

Wikipedia Poem, No. 331

wiki331-low
“It is impossible to find satisfaction in a terror that is seriously felt.” Kant, Critique of Judgement, §28

 

gently afraid
of nature
causes just

though dominion
thus shrinks from
virtuous designs

there goes inward
a reference toward fear
it may exhibit as being carried

only in our
limitation
the idea

discovers us so
far as outbursts
beautiful what is

man seeking
only a fitting fear
states respect for

comparison which is
never provided
in dominion

bemoan cases
of the world in nature
an object of stern judgement

soul above imagination
that for what we are
are is that we are