Katsuhiro Otomo, Young Magazine, Oct. 3, 1983
‘The lingering summer heat is brutal isn’t it…’
Tag: portrait
Vicious Mercy (Vermeer in Death Valley, 2020)
Leave Vermeer alone.
When I write The girl is dying I do not mean to enter the girl nor deconstruct her state of abstract goingness.
It’s a figure beyond an open window in a time of plague.
Disemboweled skywriting or the family name forgotten in water.
Which is to say: Vicious mercy becomes the uncountable gallop of the ruddy horse forging the sandy horizon.
Let the creature offenses stand in beauty among their rare pigments.
Honeycut, should I fail to mention light — What kind of poet is this? — but here!
Look!
Cherry and evergreen ring the moon like a bell unrung, you see them or don’t.
These next few moments of balance determine your eligibility for brief happiness.
Remember first to crucify the middle-ground; translucent, gathered up, mercurial, for modernity.
Mobility.
Into sun-sucked ink, oil, platinum, I vandalize form.
You, widely recognized as a modular prophet, briefly part the asbestos curtain.
Who, among these long-ago minted currencies, profits from the quietus of pulped paupers?
Ultramarine, of course, picked up and deposited here at my feet like seed, forms the reticulated reach of your life.
They do.
When they’re gone they’re gone.
Something else, especially if this chaotic rest goes unexamined.
Time lays a recursive trap in which most get caught.
From the Old English for eye-hole.
The skin that threatens to scream in from its triangular sleep, vanishing from the fog of natural history, just as quickly as it had long-ago been shed.
You suddenly appear vaulted and the sun is beautiful.
My favorite spot across the entire desert.
I am describing the man who offers the creature, spoken into long-to-go life, a bucket of sewing needles.
Mostly I see your bones and saddle.
Faithful reader, a sharp splash of light on the cheek come, potential space for potential space.
Cloudbank Intensus
Wikipedia Poem, No. 930
silver eyes hung in kohl there
is where you mean by sky conquerer
your poem its peppered nacre
variegated really your eyes do
their many crushed blue tiles
too much of an aerated thing
dispersed sky strange good sky
peppered thing long black eyes
hung with magick rhyme yourselves
after Kazim Ali’s Explorer
Chelsea Manning
Wikipedia Poem, No. 922
i’ve found you in contempt either until you purge yourself or the end of the life of the grand jury
either until you purge you in contempt either until you purge you in contempt either until you purge
the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the grand juryself o
you purge you in contempt either until you purge you in contempt either until you in contempt either
end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the end of the grand juryin contemp
yourself or the end of the end of the end of the end of the life of the end of the end of the end of
the end of the end of the end of the life of the end of the grand juryin contempt either until yo
end of the life of the grand jurypurge you in contempt either until you in contempt either until
the grand jurypurge you in contempt either until you purge yourself or the grand juryin contem
either until you purge you in contempt either until you in contempt either until you in contempt eit
the grand juryin contempt either until you in contempt either until you in contempt either until
juryjuryfe of the end of the end of the life of the end of the life of the end of the grand
i’ve found you in contempt either until you purge yourself or the end of the life of the grand jury
Someone I respect is putting on a play.
Wikipedia Poem, No. 853
put on a play
pliant appeal
so what is
putting on
a
play
grow through here
and
grow through there
crystal-sutured words
i’m sure he
can drive the honda
crv
its lithe dogwood takes root
in these crystal-sutured words
i’m sure he
can drive these crystal-sutured words
i’m
sure he can drive
and grow through these
i’m sure he would speak
for his
name
i respect fully
biodegradable materials
the honda
is lithe
lithe dogwood
take root there
and grow through crystal-sutured worlds
i’m sure he would speak for his name
i respect putting on a play
lithe sun
no one remembers himself
among these crystal-sutured words
i’m sure he can drive
and grow and speak for himself
among crystal sutures
the honda crv puts on a play
the dogwood
takes
root in crystal-sutured words
i’m sure he can
drive there
and grow through a play
the
dogwood takes root there
and grows through words
speaks for himself
among crystal and names
i remember his name
i dismember toward antlers sewn to bureau
and if i
don’t comment
toward ritual
the ritual has begun
Three Portraits
Wikipedia Poem, No. 823
Chicago, 1910
and have general charge of the trees in the treetsnd have general charge of the trees and have general charge of the trees and have general charge of the forester were to advise and assist persons wishing to advise and assist persons wishing to advise and have general charge of the trees and have general charge of the trees and assist persons wishing to advise and have general charge of the trees and have general charge of the trees in the trees and assist persons wishing to advise and have general charge of the streets the trees and assist persons wishing to plant trees
Venice, 1507
in venice for one ducat in venice for one ducat in venice for one ducat in the year 1507 venice for one ducat in venice for one ducat in venice for one ducat in venice for one ducat in the year 1507 ducat in the year 1507 one ducat in venice for one ducat in venice for one ducat in the year 1507 ok i bought in venice for one ducat in the year 1507 1507 the year 1507 ducat in the year 1507 the year 1507 i bought in venice for one ducat in the year 1507ght in the year 1507r one ducat in venice for one ducat in venice for one ducat in venice for one ducat
Cairo, 1817
to grow upon her the sudden elevation of an any he allows wings to grow upon her the destructions to grow upon her the destruction of persons to station of an any he allows wings to station of an any he allows wings to grow upon her their means or capacities may often cause their means or capacities may often cause their means or capacities may often cause the sudden elevation of persons to grow upon her their ruin if god proposes their means or capacities may often cause their means or capacities may often cause their ruin if god allows wings to grow upon her their means or capacities
Nathalia Crane, Introduced to the World!
Wikipedia Poem, No. 789
or
else plays her
everal
publicated
wish
the stupid silly book
nathalia
had been brought
short
— Brooklyn, May 4, 1924
Lisa
Max
Portrait of John Berryman
Wikipedia Poem, No. 645
so do i am exhausted in the end of our minds this instead of our minds this instead of our minds instead of our minds this the end of a heavy cold the end minding the cold speaker and spoken to our annual knowing being offered up to us i have a good deal to tell on a term-to-term basis instead of our minds the eighth day of mum as we begin less-than-life has a new mask on this is less-life than less with its new mask hell-in-new-rochelle any details now (exactly what i don't yet know) i am exhausted and at the end of our minds on an animal incomprehensible bizarre touching mint it does so and it is warm its being the beginning offered up at the end of life has a new mask on