Tuesday 27 September 2011

‘Adjectives’: the Novel; the Movie by Roy Fisher


‘Adjectives’: the Novel; the Movie

        Basil Bunting: ‘Adjectives drain nouns’



Defending more than defensive. Ill-equipped, formal,
            luxurious. Defending.


Generous, invasive, status-conscious. Anxious, generous.


Shallow, acquisitive, kitted out, entertaining.


Ill-tended, ill-fed, worn: stale tending to foul.


Grimly, well-organised, obvious. Drunk.


Questing, Attentive. Reserved. Contained


Roy Fisher, Standard Midland (Tarset: Bloodaxe Books, 2010), 35.

Dancing Neanderthal by Roy Fisher


Dancing Neanderthal

Stronger muscles than ours;
Sharper tools –

Could speak?

Possibly.

Write?

Didn’t. Unless with sharp stones
they incised their skins
that would die with them, observing
the ban on lasting records.

Traffic in symbols? Paint on rocks?

Couldn’t?

Didn’t. May have been foresight and hard taboo
to stop themselves inventing
religion, football or flags. Our world’s ways of life
keep strong by prohibitions; and they may just have been
better than us at that, as they no doubt were
at contemplating extinction.

They could have danced?

All night, with that much muscle.

Sung?

No reason why not.

Hard wired to diatonic?


Roy Fisher, Standard Midland (Tarset: Bloodaxe Books, 2010), 32-3.

On Spare Land by Roy Fisher


On Spare Land

Wormwood
rank grass
kids’ dens: the entire
little essay.

Commons without commoners
the Unadopted. A footpath worn
from corner to corner. Wormwood.

And how at the edge the hoardings
paralyse words high up
in the common air.

John Cage
on a bland enough midwestern
campus:
              – use random means
to set coordinates then
hang around at the intersection
all day if need be. There’ll
be something to interest you!


Roy Fisher, Standard Midland (Tarset: Bloodaxe Books, 2010), 13.

Monday 26 September 2011

Past Time by Harvey Shapiro


PAST TIME

               I believe we came together
               Out of ignorance not love,
               Both being shy and hunted in the city.
               In the hot summer, touching each other,
               Amazed at how love could come
               Like a waterfall, with frightening force
               And bruising sleep. Waking at noon,
               Touching each other for direction,
               Out of ignorance not love.


Richard Kostelanetz, Possibilities of Poetry: An Anthology of American Contemporaries (New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1970), 344.

Automatic World by Philip Lamantia


AUTOMATIC WORLD

The sun has drowned
virgins are no more
there is no need for understanding
but there is so much to see

So come with me
down the boulevard
of crawling veins
Don’t be afraid
blood is cheap!

A paradise song?
A dirty song?
A love sonnet?
Scream it out!
Then we’ll have the human walls
tumbling down to meet our march
into the raw-meat city!

The velvet robes are strewn
across the landscape
We step upon the sidewalk
that goes up and down
up to the clouds
down to the starving people
Don’t ask me what to do!

Keep on going
we’ll end up somewhere fast
on the moon perhaps!

Rainbow guns are dancing
in front of the movie queens
Everyone is laughing
flying dying
never knowing when to rest
never knowing when to eat

And the fountains come falling
out of her thistle-covered breasts
and the dogs are happy
and the clowns are knifing
and the ballerinas are eating stone

O the mirror-like dirt
of freshly spilt blood
trickling down the walls
the walls that reach the stars!

O the flock of sheep
breaking their flesh open
with bones sucked
from the brothels!

O the grave of bats
sailing through shops
with the violent hands!

When will these come?
When will these go?

The sun is riding into your eye
virgins are bursting
from under my flaming palms
and we are slowly floating away


Richard Kostelanetz, Possibilities of Poetry: An Anthology of American Contemporaries (New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1970), 246-7.

Thursday 25 August 2011

To The Reader by J. V. Cunningham


TO THE READER

                                 Time will assuage.
                                 Time’s verses bury
                                 Margin and page
                                 In commentary,

                                 For gloss demands
                                 A gloss annexed
                                 Till busy hands
                                 Blot out the text,

                                 And all’s coherent.
                                 Search in this gloss
                                 No text inherent:
                                 The text was loss.

                                 The gain is gloss.


Richard Kostelanetz, Possibilities of Poetry; An Anthology of American Contemporaries (New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1970), 74.

Saturday 13 August 2011

The Green Buoy by John Barnie


The Green Buoy


I’ve nothing to say to the
green buoy out there in the waves
bouncing on its chainy knees

then up riding an incomer
down floating with a swagger I’d
never say gracefully the sun

shining on its wet struts
arms akimbo Cossack dancing
Whey-hey as a big one

streams over whispering in its
kellyman ear a secret (You’re
invincible) I’m not supposed to hear.


John Barnie, The Green Buoy (Kinnerton, Presteigne, Powys: The Rack Press, 2006), 12.

Friday 15 July 2011

Benjamin Sonnet #44 by Clint Burnham


                      X L I V


in focus men in uninformed uniforms
not so much uniform but unformal
become an island hence without
a peninsula or permanent bridge
of land, of metal, of human construction
he said, as he walked off my
porch, an earphone wearing
cop
who gets you from here
to there on lines
stew would make anyone
vegan


one-unit immobile
shoulders

      2 VI 07


Clint Burnham, The Benjamin Sonnets (Toronto: Book Thug, 2009), 54.

Sunday 3 July 2011

The Outsider Ape by Roberto Bolaño

Remember the Triumph of Alexander the Great, by Gustave Moreau?
The beauty and terror, the crystal moment when
All breathing stops. But you wouldn’t stand still under that dome
in dim shadows, under that dome lit by ferocious
rays of harmony. And it didn’t take your breath away.
You walked like a tireless ape among the gods,
For you knew—or maybe not—that the Triumph was unfurling
its weapons inside Plato’s cavern: images,
shadows without substance, sovereignty of emptiness. You wanted
to reach the tree and the bird, the leftovers
from a humble backyard fiesta, the desert land
watered with blood, the scene of the crime where
statues of photographers and police are grazing, and the hostility of life
outdoors. Ah, the hostility of life outdoors!


Roberto Bolaño, The Romantic Dogs, trans. by Laura Healy (London: Picador, 2011), 39.

Day Bleeding Rain by Roberto Bolaño


DAY BLEEDING RAIN

Oh day, bleeding rain,
what are you doing in the soul of the abandoned,
day bleeding volition only barely glimpsed:
behind the reed curtain, in the mire,
with your toes sized up in pain
like a small shivering animal:
but you’re not small and you’re shivering from pleasure,
day cloaked in the might of volition,
frozen stiff in a mire that’s maybe not
of this world, barefoot in the middle of the dream that works its way
from our hearts toward our necessities,
from fury towards desire: curtain of reeds
that opens itself and dirties us and embraces us.


Roberto Bolaño, The Romantic Dogs, trans. by Laura Healy (London: Picador, 2011), 15.

Resurrection by Roberto Bolaño


RESURRECTION

Poetry slips into dreams
like a diver in a lake.
Poetry, braver than anyone,
slips in and sinks
like lead
through a lake infinite as Loch Ness
or tragic and turbid as Lake Balatón.
Consider it from below:
a diver
innocent
covered in feathers
of will.
Poetry slips into dreams
like a diver who’s dead
in the eyes of God.


Roberto Bolaño, The Romantic Dogs, trans. by Laura Healy (London: Picador, 2011), 7.

With the Flies by Roberto Bolaño


WITH THE FLIES

Poets of Troy
Nothing that could have been yours
Exists anymore

Not temples not gardens
Not poetry

You are free
Admirable poets of Troy


Roberto Bolaño, The Romantic Dogs, trans. by Laura Healy (London: Picador, 2011), 143.

Saturday 2 July 2011

“Only the Herd” (undated) by Carl Andre

O N L Y  T H E  H E R D
I S  A L O U D  A N D
O N L Y  T H E  H E A R D
I S  A L L O W E D


Carl Andre, Cuts: Texts 1959-2004, ed. by James Meyer (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2005), 278.

“Leverwords” (1966) by Carl Andre


beam
clay beam
edge clay beam
grid edge clay beam
bond grid edge clay beam
path bond grid edge clay beam

reef
slab reef
wall slab reef
bead wall slab reef
cell bead wall slab reef
rock cell bead wall slab reef

root
heel root
line heel root
rate line heel root
dike rate line heel root
sill dike rate line heel root

room
time room
hill time room
inch hill time room
rack inch hill time room
mass rack inch hill time room


Carl Andre, Cuts: Texts 1959-2004, ed. by James Meyer (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2005), 232.

Friday 1 July 2011

[I am going from one side to the other] by Vito Acconci


I am going from one side to the other.
am
going
from
one
side
to
the
other.


Vito Acconci, LANGUAGE TO COVER A PAGE: The Early Writings of Vito Acconci, ed. by Craig Dworkin (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2006), 69.

[This is an example of a voice speaking now on Academy Street....] by Vito Acconci


This is an example of a voice speaking now on Academy Street,
between Seaman Street and Cooper Street.
This is an example of a voice speaking now on Bank Street,
between Washington Street and Greenwich Street.
This is an example of a voice speaking now on Wadsworth Avenue,
between West 177th Street and West 178th Street.
This is an example of a voice speaking now on Delancey Street,
between Allen Street and Orchard Street.
This is an example of a voice speaking now on East 3rd Street,
between Avenue A and Avenue B.
This is an example of a voice speaking now on St. Nicholas
Avenue, between West 155th Street and West 156th Street.
This is an example of a voice speaking now on Gansvoort Street,
between Greenwich Street and Hudson Street.
This is an example of a voice speaking now on Catherine Street,
between Madison Street and Henry Street.
This is an example of a voice speaking now on West 45th Street,
between Broadway and Eighth Avenue.
This is an example of a voice speaking now on Ninth Avenue,
between West 218th Street and West 219th Street.


Vito Acconci, LANGUAGE TO COVER A PAGE: The Early Writings of Vito Acconci, ed. by Craig Dworkin (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2006), 399.

Sunday 19 June 2011

‘One is inside’ by R. D. Laing


One is inside
then outside what one has been inside
One feels empty
because there is nothing inside oneself
One tries to get inside oneself
        that inside of the outside
        that one was once inside
        once one tries to get oneself inside what
        one is outside:
        to eat and be eaten
to have the outside inside and to be
        inside the outside

But this is not enough. One is trying to get
the inside of what one is outside inside, and to
get inside the outside. But one does not get
inside the outside by getting the outside inside
for;
although one is full inside of the inside of the outside
one is on the outside of one’s inside
and by getting inside the outside
one remains empty because
while one is on the inside
even the inside of the outside is outside
and inside oneself there is still nothing
There has never been anything else
and there never will be


R. D. Laing, Knots (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1973), 83.

‘I am doing it’ by R. D. Laing


I am doing it
the it I am doing is
the I that is doing it
the I that is doing it is
the it I am doing
it is doing the I that am doing it
I am being done by the it I am doing
it is doing it


One is afraid of
the self that is afraid of
the self that is afraid of
the self that is afraid
One may perhaps speak of reflections


R. D. Laing, Knots (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1973), 84.

‘a finger points to the moon’ by R. D. Laing


a finger points to the moon

Put the expression
        a finger points to the moon, in brackets
        (a finger points to the moon)
The statement:
‘A finger points to the moon is in brackets’
is an attempt to say that all that is in the bracket
        (                                                             )
is, as to that which is not in the bracket,
what a finger is to the moon

Put all possible expressions into brackets
Put all possible forms in brackets
and put the brackets in brackets

Every expression, and every form,
is to what is expressionless and formless
what a finger is to the moon
all expressions and all forms
point to the expressionless and formless

the proposition
        ‘All forms point to the formless’
is itself a formal proposition






Not,
        as finger to moon
        so form to formless
but,
        as finger is to moon
        so
                 —                                                               —
                 |  all possible expressions, forms, propositions, |
                 |  including this one, made or yet to be made,    |
                 |  together with the brackets                             |
                 —                                                               —
        are to






What an interesting finger
        let me suck it

It’s not an interesting finger
        take it away






The statement is pointless
The finger is speechless


R. D. Laing, Knots (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1973), 87-90.

Sunday 12 June 2011

The Painter by John Ashbery


THE PAINTER

Sitting between the sea and the buildings
He enjoyed painting the sea's portrait.
But just as children imagine a prayer
Is merely silence, he expected his subject
To rush up the sand, and, seizing a brush,
Plaster its own portrait on the canvas.

So there was never any paint on his canvas
Until the people who lived in the buildings
Put him to work: "Try using the brush
As a means to an end. Select, for a portrait,
Something less angry and large, and more subject,
To a painter's moods, or, perhaps, to a prayer."

How could he explain to them his prayer
That nature, not art, might usurp the canvas?
He chose his wife for a new subject,
Making her vast, like ruined buildings,
As if, forgetting itself, the portrait
Had expressed itself without a brush.

Slightly encouraged, he dipped his brush
In the sea, murmuring a heartfelt prayer:
"My soul, when I paint this next portrait
Let it be you who wrecks the canvas."
The news spread like wildfire through the buildings:
He had gone back to the sea for his subject.

Imagine a painter crucified by his subject!
Too exhausted even to lift his brush,
He provoked some artists leaning from the buildings
To malicious mirth: "We haven't a prayer
Now, of putting ourselves on canvas,
Or getting the sea to sit for a portrait!"

Others declared it a self-portrait.
Finally all indications of a subject
Began to fade, leaving the canvas
Perfectly white. He put down the brush.
At once a howl, that was also a prayer,
Arose from the overcrowded buildings.

They tossed him, the portrait, from the tallest of the buildings;
And the sea devoured the canvas and the brush
As though his subject had decided to remain a prayer.


John Ashbery, The Norton Anthology of Poetry, 5th edition, ed. by Margaret Ferguson, Mary Jo Salter, and Jon Stallworthy (New York and London: W.W. Norton and Company, 2005), 1736-7.