READINGS
cements
for john crouse
see the meant. see what is meant.
this requires more than seeing. it requires both looking and reading.
what is meant, as i see it, and as i read it, is concrete.
the photo on the back cover, as i read the image, of a production facility for alpha cement, is an afterword, as if a statement of the first principle of concrete poetry.
or, to be precise, it is a translation and a gloss, of this first principle as presented in the content of the book.
live free, as i return to the text, seems to be what we are expected to know only after reading the book. during our reading, we are constrained by the physical form of the book, compelled to a gradual assembling of its gently inscribed injunction.
this, i believe, as i begin the interpretative process upon my own reading, must be why the title of the book is expressed in the plural. to live free is no simple matter. it is, in fact, in practice, very much constrained by its own complexity.
||||||
since gland the restoration of loon democracy
spoon rowing equality shops soup italics, washing the fried voting machine, sleet shorts figured enigma since 1936. nativity attuned to media retorts cramped garment campers gaze, shaved poodles posse dream amid popular wars. my health slinks loins alone, jarring vitamin anaesthesia, set totemic, ensign vacuum taut and cunning hysteria keens. amnesia stains the delicate flask. pyres veil sour drip. net political thunder into karmic stasis titillates heretical anomie, heckler lisp finally weave and sludge. teflon kayak noose, moon militia syrup, nylon toast and chaos. knotty vote for checkers presidential nose, shopping the fish gun loosely, coconut and pale ballistics. journalist toad splint aspirin, plain sap in boiling staves, a dose of nourishing odor for the caterpillar tao, spun khaki mirror jest to skin the mucus kittens. flowing spines spoon bowling batman optics, how arrogant cars and rats of art gnarl the flabby babblers. veiled submarine militia chihuahua into helicopter style, or horrors incognito, justice as a vista seeking lists of honey. anklets seep encrypted vanilla, a toyota in every kettle, jail for the glandular alphabet and the restaurants of the moon. democracy is a hefty ski jump jettisoned typographical errata. even the saliva keys masticate lashes negligence. vital hymns vascular lamps in oneiric travail collate moose soot ministry, vast tonsils spleen unseen. savannah embossed with hells, jail hidden in the samurai sauna, howl stones assume palaver rotting halitosis palomino! vendetta pylon arise, slink and pooch tarantula. by theoretical musket showering emote, blur sauerkraut meaning ocean, root plasm kaleidoscopic into curried coup.
after vote puppet, by jukka-pekka kervinen
||||||
a beauty
beauty like a vine eaten by flames forks history in silhouette, tendrils crawling from her eyes, hand stretched towards the half-eaten frame.
she hovers just above the burning salamander, segments of mind etched in productive muse.
letters swarm against a swirl of blurred type, calisthenics of calligraphy and cataclysm, a time of spray, squiggles stretched across the creased gulf of the page.
she gathers in raised arms an asemia against silence. roses blooming in the open book express an indecipherable music.
our reflection redacts the equation of these oblique occasions. resistance is duration. procedural limitations destabilize and evert the durable potential. an illegible handwriting occludes the stenciled alphabet.
beauty disintegrates to its component fragments: be, eat, bet, at. she dances out of her book into the space beyond the page, naked without her text, alchemical chrysalis as well as fleeing ephemera.
after beauty, by john cese & luc fierens
||||||
the devils tao
ad hoc lode nor my diode bulb, if slippery hip to sleep, seeps oaks leech arrow each to luggage luck, pork sperm swimming loam.
hex logos squared at hot hoodoo to hologram slowly cocoa, squiggly solo spun claws chains in china sung. nude hoax train ran fungus, fishy leopard under scrawls morocco, squared saint spitting serpents beak.
flap troops mayan continuous costume scratch, veins to forked horizon or ludic zorro.
after john m. bennett & cesar figueiredo
||||||
howl to singe
part digital stance, fern data gate your cat axe haddock mutant coup, wet hoax & pubic window, to wage our wrecked egg aardvark rotting clan.
cultural ache droop beef and vowel, roar tray chalk boot flag and cartel goat. viral turf root litigation, halibut on a leash. thaw hoax burnished fish totem tandem.
sleep cops calx dali, in the nixon bladder.
after how to singe, by john m. bennett & cesar figueiredo
||||||
defenestrate or power?
not a simile, nor spillage of selves through the seven windows, a zoo of birds subject to the royal latch derails ejections llama, reveille to the editor swallowed curved tennessee, spurns thimble musk and skirts severed elbow druse.
sundry desk oaf mailers clock sludge bream and scrunch. you simmer trout neon i lunch, sole lint toast in broom voice citric doodles. dare mumbled knickers calf tunes raven spasm thinks, coal as cruel arc stove or marbled nous.
pink retch more cyborgs eagle snips cart or doodles elf, shack elvis recursive escargot seams tsunami gnash. lewd wolf reggae half octagonal summit, sculpt golem watch or mogul sax, ate parched morphine liana, nor paycheck recidivist bonjour pajama knob.
exact gallop moral, nor boiler gulag knit sojourn.
after fenestration powder, by john m. bennett & cesar figueiredo
||||||
alone with myselves and the strewn damp comb, merrily misreading
flocking glitch home, gulch name, glass or gash home and name—
log blinker, log stun blinker, log traced my open stun husk, again stun lust, stun husk moon, moon blinker, log traced my gash, stun husk moon blinker—
be blank, naked arms of the letter P. neck eye, blank eye, blank neck eye, settle mask cash years. quick cli, clipped clip, clip art part, scrunch prune shard harlot, row log or hog—
cling rabbits porcine looming umbilical gland. see sneeze sex, see seize, wet lock lore or couch (used onions). gland goes snakes, sugar (cougar) hummer (hammer)—
bank sank, be flying fish roach calligraphy, bet ice age, stream salad betting blank page—
||||||
war wares
smoking partitioned brain, egg mix trim gar skeletal cocktail eye. gag clan blotch, virus verso maximal extra arts. universal tablet cholera, attrition caboose presentiment, legume nights and arabesque, the cardinal cereal tao.
rascal loop drool moral smear, drip letteral daunt sax nexus, fish nor soma spinal fuming yam.
shade cowl younger tongue columbus, wood ache latent quote, sock fog of poetics cosign, segue spittle beet or dada porridge.
after john m. bennett & cesar figueiredo
||||||
ideal
the jetsam sun tract hills fully heirloom, whole cheese polished like word bars.
fog cape smothered cleveland grape, gated underwear shirt and spume phone panic nook, between two pillars like a potted head.
scrawl forgotten clump they lumpy grate themselves. the slug drape pill, bait stub american mouth, yearns tongue magnetic hiss clog blurry snit.
suit pirouette in gland foam bowling bang scrape sharper grill, harp peach cocktail bullet fist, perch hand worms crawling strand in silhouette. streets like ice on glass hump rotten knoll.
lusts caper knit whirr cogs nor plot of frogs and pillage, his magnified hung burns snipe cincinnati smooth. crepe dog frilly fills beans crook phantom bone.
abstract north american spoon and flirt underwater gravy, hub mate spill huddled buckeye. book relic tonic spam, the paper rusts aghast mice biker sheets.
after slug, by john m. bennett & steve dalachinsky
||||||
mocha grease
memory is blank gravy lattice for hinged sneakers scarred tattoo. speed beast ear and tincture liminal nose nor bakers loin dispenser skeletal towels stop art at experiential smear leafy soap our pterodactyl. lung washed handy index rot. boat parsed owl phlegm in ribcage deaths flank host radio grin. salsa codex in the rearview umbrellas. feel the sneeze prayer slouching corpse to white clocks palm suburbia. moral historic bank. rice navy. forked wings speaking cars taboo. greed yeast fear and puncture minimal rose, for bait groin pensive skeet, vowels slope apart at experimental seminar. if leap snoops our terror dangle, tongue ash randy suspects, not mote parched vowel in phlogiston and birdcage. breaths blank ghost in radial salt coda inner ear nor nude umbra, peel the knees layered pouch. coarse tooth whitened flocks to clam or urban visa.
after film noir, by steve dalachinsky & john m. bennett
||||||
our tailors slant inscribed
lips pistol cartoon mannikin, alligator eye and emblematic cat, shelter the earlobe at faded joking clock. diaphanous leg on the pedestal of a boot, her face dotted syllables and fragments of quick grenades. brand gratuity aligns with the ulterior dénouement of the grave. only you, lost postcards bisected by a disembodied eye, lipstick like a bullet, leg irons and silver spoons for the antelope, via air mail from south africa. the scandalous film provokes public decomposition. at the commune of preventive saviors, films eaten by a blank asparagus. instant critics dangle participial sauce detuned. our original mad rebellion was made of these same rugged practices. ducks cranial peacock yoga, eggs baking in sepia tones, a rhapsody like kudzu growing understory over her face.
after shelter, by luc fierens & keiichi nakamura
||||||
stuffed pyramids & bitten anthologies
simple nouns, dirt toad arrows and skunks bubble. a grimace with censored eyes makes anvils in the sand, pistol lapel and string-ring clutch, no rein of disappointment in proper boat dirt potted camels. uniformed power is contemptuous of uniformed incarceration. text germs embodied void sickness of jails, hunger under lotus contortions, the bearded moons of christmas, but it is good to process old snout with a special romaine of miserly infant juice. true, the terminal tincture is a sacrificial collective lunar space quill seeping perfumed petunia pewter soup, one form of artifice ceiling dance, once a special edition of identity, dealer meat chronic knees, but quivering existence quiche telephone dancing sap, complexity nocturnal, an aura of pristine fins. ill assembly beans or quonset snot, against the genre of the truckers. “a gratuitous hostility is the perfect quest” — sir emily frost. her eyes fizzle with traumatic usury. culture is a conic wire of veils. light shudders in the school of versatile zaum. this is the usurious seer, the felt sea of a banished vermifuge. if beans were jars, then tongues would cough graffiti. the eyes are peeled from the face in the postmodern revolution. like gold and bread, bones are the peace ghosts hear. the ecstasy of the menial is a disoriented prose.
after e-shapes, by luc fierens & mark sonnenfeld
||||||
factor as bonnet warfare
flowering helicopter maps bald vocable chickens hidden germs each navel ladder. word under androgynous bird builds helical equator landmine. behind industrial chicken wire our buildings evaporate in raw heat, a genre of possible humans haunted by rented credibility, bamboo ruptured tanks astride a tired democratic wind. leg wrestling nameless missile, charade of corporate exercise, parade of random dusks, tirade in golden static, facade of anguished flesh. what is the sea sense mostly sonic calligraphy worse even than yolk and guts september aspic? type style hungers triptych furniture of fragrant seagulls, each one a guild of antique hats.
after the state of the art, by luc fierens & annina van sebroeck
||||||
seams in focal burlap
circular no dada circulates crossed text scraps against the void, smear smudge and blur occluded crosshatch, routes reading in all durations. the holes in the void are where the phonemes live. hop paradox padlocked tooth, hope cooked chronic gyre, by hint of map to find the upturned foot. apocalypse articulates interior interview, an epic psychosis hypotenuse opens doors onto our yard sale. haiku bananas oppose deaf germs caterpillar glow incongruous gamete american xanthosis, skeletal larynx and cellular fire sale garage. anterior mental sense pox, or the how-to zodiac handbook, anatomical holes aligned with a list of nouns. faces float between the texts like binocular surfing zygotes. at the evil baseball library, such lovers metropolitan trout due ceilings trombone apropos, a religious sausage for the serious family cactus. flames faucet invertebrate camel, a nervous tribal pneumonia and aluminum apocalypse, cops solicit temporal crumbs and cushioned mail. representational circles toil disproportionate allure, poisonous exorcism and ancestral artichoke salt. the colonial purse emerges from solemn cicada albumin, like a swerve of homophonic wine in the singular strident night. fume the cups to dance confections route. nude weeds straddle the juice.
after folk noism in(ter)vention, by luc fierens & dmitry bulatov
||||||
rea nikonova — “peace/transplant”
from poetry is a boundary line between word and no word
the word PEACE as title at top, with a square enclosing the initial E.
two columns of letteral permutations.
column one contains permutations beginning with the vowels E and A.
column two contains those beginning with the consonants P and C.
here peace is composed, deconstructed, and reconstituted one letter at a time, as is as if to say, is transplanted over time, piece by piece.
E
column one begins with “epeac”. the last letter becomes the first.
the next permutation is “eacep”. the initial E forms a column of its own. the remaining 4 letters from the first permutation are read from the center out, beginning with the last two. so, the initial E, followed by AC followed by EP.
the next permutation is “ecepa”. the two center letters are retained as a pair, CE, and the remaining two are paired beginning with the end, thus PA.
the next entry, “ecape”, is produced by pairing the first and last, CA, then reversing the positions of the central pair, EP to PE.
next, “eapec” is formed by repeating the method used to produce “ecepa”.
“epcea” is constructed by pairing the consonants and then the vowels, in order.
“epcae” reverses the vowel pair order.
A
thick lines enclose the Es.
in the first four permutations the E is the central letter.
the first two begin with AC, thus with “ACE”.
the next two begin with AP, so “APE”.
each line can be read as if it comprised of two vocables, the article “A” and the following letter string.
the first two lines are homonymic: “a cepe” and “a ceep”.
each sounding suggests a closing, “asleep”.
associational sound is content, the peace of sleep.
the next two lines are also homonymic: “a pece” and “a peece”.
there is peace, but this is only one form of peace. here we have two others.
P
thick, broken or dotted lines link the two Es is “paece”.
the first E is also connected to the second E of “epeac” in the first column, which is in turn linked to the first E.
thin, wavy lines connect the Cs and Ps.
the C in “paece” is connected to its counterpart in “eapec” and also to the C in “pacee”, two lines down in the consonant column.
the letters so to speak are transplanted from column to column, growing so giving a peace apiece, site to site recombinant sounds of peace.
C
the first four lines begin with CE, which sounding is to say as if with C, which as we see is indeed the case.
we arrive at TRANSPLANT, bottom left, as title, after our reading of the text. all titles in this book are found at the bottom of their pages.
compact instructional gloss, title as terse afterword.
PEACE is as if a preface, a one-word introductory note, and acts as the melody stated, theme in sense sound and sight, and the architext of the poem is constructed of variations on this theme.
january - april 2005
for john crouse
see the meant. see what is meant.
this requires more than seeing. it requires both looking and reading.
what is meant, as i see it, and as i read it, is concrete.
the photo on the back cover, as i read the image, of a production facility for alpha cement, is an afterword, as if a statement of the first principle of concrete poetry.
or, to be precise, it is a translation and a gloss, of this first principle as presented in the content of the book.
live free, as i return to the text, seems to be what we are expected to know only after reading the book. during our reading, we are constrained by the physical form of the book, compelled to a gradual assembling of its gently inscribed injunction.
this, i believe, as i begin the interpretative process upon my own reading, must be why the title of the book is expressed in the plural. to live free is no simple matter. it is, in fact, in practice, very much constrained by its own complexity.
||||||
since gland the restoration of loon democracy
spoon rowing equality shops soup italics, washing the fried voting machine, sleet shorts figured enigma since 1936. nativity attuned to media retorts cramped garment campers gaze, shaved poodles posse dream amid popular wars. my health slinks loins alone, jarring vitamin anaesthesia, set totemic, ensign vacuum taut and cunning hysteria keens. amnesia stains the delicate flask. pyres veil sour drip. net political thunder into karmic stasis titillates heretical anomie, heckler lisp finally weave and sludge. teflon kayak noose, moon militia syrup, nylon toast and chaos. knotty vote for checkers presidential nose, shopping the fish gun loosely, coconut and pale ballistics. journalist toad splint aspirin, plain sap in boiling staves, a dose of nourishing odor for the caterpillar tao, spun khaki mirror jest to skin the mucus kittens. flowing spines spoon bowling batman optics, how arrogant cars and rats of art gnarl the flabby babblers. veiled submarine militia chihuahua into helicopter style, or horrors incognito, justice as a vista seeking lists of honey. anklets seep encrypted vanilla, a toyota in every kettle, jail for the glandular alphabet and the restaurants of the moon. democracy is a hefty ski jump jettisoned typographical errata. even the saliva keys masticate lashes negligence. vital hymns vascular lamps in oneiric travail collate moose soot ministry, vast tonsils spleen unseen. savannah embossed with hells, jail hidden in the samurai sauna, howl stones assume palaver rotting halitosis palomino! vendetta pylon arise, slink and pooch tarantula. by theoretical musket showering emote, blur sauerkraut meaning ocean, root plasm kaleidoscopic into curried coup.
after vote puppet, by jukka-pekka kervinen
||||||
a beauty
beauty like a vine eaten by flames forks history in silhouette, tendrils crawling from her eyes, hand stretched towards the half-eaten frame.
she hovers just above the burning salamander, segments of mind etched in productive muse.
letters swarm against a swirl of blurred type, calisthenics of calligraphy and cataclysm, a time of spray, squiggles stretched across the creased gulf of the page.
she gathers in raised arms an asemia against silence. roses blooming in the open book express an indecipherable music.
our reflection redacts the equation of these oblique occasions. resistance is duration. procedural limitations destabilize and evert the durable potential. an illegible handwriting occludes the stenciled alphabet.
beauty disintegrates to its component fragments: be, eat, bet, at. she dances out of her book into the space beyond the page, naked without her text, alchemical chrysalis as well as fleeing ephemera.
after beauty, by john cese & luc fierens
||||||
the devils tao
ad hoc lode nor my diode bulb, if slippery hip to sleep, seeps oaks leech arrow each to luggage luck, pork sperm swimming loam.
hex logos squared at hot hoodoo to hologram slowly cocoa, squiggly solo spun claws chains in china sung. nude hoax train ran fungus, fishy leopard under scrawls morocco, squared saint spitting serpents beak.
flap troops mayan continuous costume scratch, veins to forked horizon or ludic zorro.
after john m. bennett & cesar figueiredo
||||||
howl to singe
part digital stance, fern data gate your cat axe haddock mutant coup, wet hoax & pubic window, to wage our wrecked egg aardvark rotting clan.
cultural ache droop beef and vowel, roar tray chalk boot flag and cartel goat. viral turf root litigation, halibut on a leash. thaw hoax burnished fish totem tandem.
sleep cops calx dali, in the nixon bladder.
after how to singe, by john m. bennett & cesar figueiredo
||||||
defenestrate or power?
not a simile, nor spillage of selves through the seven windows, a zoo of birds subject to the royal latch derails ejections llama, reveille to the editor swallowed curved tennessee, spurns thimble musk and skirts severed elbow druse.
sundry desk oaf mailers clock sludge bream and scrunch. you simmer trout neon i lunch, sole lint toast in broom voice citric doodles. dare mumbled knickers calf tunes raven spasm thinks, coal as cruel arc stove or marbled nous.
pink retch more cyborgs eagle snips cart or doodles elf, shack elvis recursive escargot seams tsunami gnash. lewd wolf reggae half octagonal summit, sculpt golem watch or mogul sax, ate parched morphine liana, nor paycheck recidivist bonjour pajama knob.
exact gallop moral, nor boiler gulag knit sojourn.
after fenestration powder, by john m. bennett & cesar figueiredo
||||||
alone with myselves and the strewn damp comb, merrily misreading
flocking glitch home, gulch name, glass or gash home and name—
log blinker, log stun blinker, log traced my open stun husk, again stun lust, stun husk moon, moon blinker, log traced my gash, stun husk moon blinker—
be blank, naked arms of the letter P. neck eye, blank eye, blank neck eye, settle mask cash years. quick cli, clipped clip, clip art part, scrunch prune shard harlot, row log or hog—
cling rabbits porcine looming umbilical gland. see sneeze sex, see seize, wet lock lore or couch (used onions). gland goes snakes, sugar (cougar) hummer (hammer)—
bank sank, be flying fish roach calligraphy, bet ice age, stream salad betting blank page—
||||||
war wares
smoking partitioned brain, egg mix trim gar skeletal cocktail eye. gag clan blotch, virus verso maximal extra arts. universal tablet cholera, attrition caboose presentiment, legume nights and arabesque, the cardinal cereal tao.
rascal loop drool moral smear, drip letteral daunt sax nexus, fish nor soma spinal fuming yam.
shade cowl younger tongue columbus, wood ache latent quote, sock fog of poetics cosign, segue spittle beet or dada porridge.
after john m. bennett & cesar figueiredo
||||||
ideal
the jetsam sun tract hills fully heirloom, whole cheese polished like word bars.
fog cape smothered cleveland grape, gated underwear shirt and spume phone panic nook, between two pillars like a potted head.
scrawl forgotten clump they lumpy grate themselves. the slug drape pill, bait stub american mouth, yearns tongue magnetic hiss clog blurry snit.
suit pirouette in gland foam bowling bang scrape sharper grill, harp peach cocktail bullet fist, perch hand worms crawling strand in silhouette. streets like ice on glass hump rotten knoll.
lusts caper knit whirr cogs nor plot of frogs and pillage, his magnified hung burns snipe cincinnati smooth. crepe dog frilly fills beans crook phantom bone.
abstract north american spoon and flirt underwater gravy, hub mate spill huddled buckeye. book relic tonic spam, the paper rusts aghast mice biker sheets.
after slug, by john m. bennett & steve dalachinsky
||||||
mocha grease
memory is blank gravy lattice for hinged sneakers scarred tattoo. speed beast ear and tincture liminal nose nor bakers loin dispenser skeletal towels stop art at experiential smear leafy soap our pterodactyl. lung washed handy index rot. boat parsed owl phlegm in ribcage deaths flank host radio grin. salsa codex in the rearview umbrellas. feel the sneeze prayer slouching corpse to white clocks palm suburbia. moral historic bank. rice navy. forked wings speaking cars taboo. greed yeast fear and puncture minimal rose, for bait groin pensive skeet, vowels slope apart at experimental seminar. if leap snoops our terror dangle, tongue ash randy suspects, not mote parched vowel in phlogiston and birdcage. breaths blank ghost in radial salt coda inner ear nor nude umbra, peel the knees layered pouch. coarse tooth whitened flocks to clam or urban visa.
after film noir, by steve dalachinsky & john m. bennett
||||||
our tailors slant inscribed
lips pistol cartoon mannikin, alligator eye and emblematic cat, shelter the earlobe at faded joking clock. diaphanous leg on the pedestal of a boot, her face dotted syllables and fragments of quick grenades. brand gratuity aligns with the ulterior dénouement of the grave. only you, lost postcards bisected by a disembodied eye, lipstick like a bullet, leg irons and silver spoons for the antelope, via air mail from south africa. the scandalous film provokes public decomposition. at the commune of preventive saviors, films eaten by a blank asparagus. instant critics dangle participial sauce detuned. our original mad rebellion was made of these same rugged practices. ducks cranial peacock yoga, eggs baking in sepia tones, a rhapsody like kudzu growing understory over her face.
after shelter, by luc fierens & keiichi nakamura
||||||
stuffed pyramids & bitten anthologies
simple nouns, dirt toad arrows and skunks bubble. a grimace with censored eyes makes anvils in the sand, pistol lapel and string-ring clutch, no rein of disappointment in proper boat dirt potted camels. uniformed power is contemptuous of uniformed incarceration. text germs embodied void sickness of jails, hunger under lotus contortions, the bearded moons of christmas, but it is good to process old snout with a special romaine of miserly infant juice. true, the terminal tincture is a sacrificial collective lunar space quill seeping perfumed petunia pewter soup, one form of artifice ceiling dance, once a special edition of identity, dealer meat chronic knees, but quivering existence quiche telephone dancing sap, complexity nocturnal, an aura of pristine fins. ill assembly beans or quonset snot, against the genre of the truckers. “a gratuitous hostility is the perfect quest” — sir emily frost. her eyes fizzle with traumatic usury. culture is a conic wire of veils. light shudders in the school of versatile zaum. this is the usurious seer, the felt sea of a banished vermifuge. if beans were jars, then tongues would cough graffiti. the eyes are peeled from the face in the postmodern revolution. like gold and bread, bones are the peace ghosts hear. the ecstasy of the menial is a disoriented prose.
after e-shapes, by luc fierens & mark sonnenfeld
||||||
factor as bonnet warfare
flowering helicopter maps bald vocable chickens hidden germs each navel ladder. word under androgynous bird builds helical equator landmine. behind industrial chicken wire our buildings evaporate in raw heat, a genre of possible humans haunted by rented credibility, bamboo ruptured tanks astride a tired democratic wind. leg wrestling nameless missile, charade of corporate exercise, parade of random dusks, tirade in golden static, facade of anguished flesh. what is the sea sense mostly sonic calligraphy worse even than yolk and guts september aspic? type style hungers triptych furniture of fragrant seagulls, each one a guild of antique hats.
after the state of the art, by luc fierens & annina van sebroeck
||||||
seams in focal burlap
circular no dada circulates crossed text scraps against the void, smear smudge and blur occluded crosshatch, routes reading in all durations. the holes in the void are where the phonemes live. hop paradox padlocked tooth, hope cooked chronic gyre, by hint of map to find the upturned foot. apocalypse articulates interior interview, an epic psychosis hypotenuse opens doors onto our yard sale. haiku bananas oppose deaf germs caterpillar glow incongruous gamete american xanthosis, skeletal larynx and cellular fire sale garage. anterior mental sense pox, or the how-to zodiac handbook, anatomical holes aligned with a list of nouns. faces float between the texts like binocular surfing zygotes. at the evil baseball library, such lovers metropolitan trout due ceilings trombone apropos, a religious sausage for the serious family cactus. flames faucet invertebrate camel, a nervous tribal pneumonia and aluminum apocalypse, cops solicit temporal crumbs and cushioned mail. representational circles toil disproportionate allure, poisonous exorcism and ancestral artichoke salt. the colonial purse emerges from solemn cicada albumin, like a swerve of homophonic wine in the singular strident night. fume the cups to dance confections route. nude weeds straddle the juice.
after folk noism in(ter)vention, by luc fierens & dmitry bulatov
||||||
rea nikonova — “peace/transplant”
from poetry is a boundary line between word and no word
the word PEACE as title at top, with a square enclosing the initial E.
two columns of letteral permutations.
column one contains permutations beginning with the vowels E and A.
column two contains those beginning with the consonants P and C.
here peace is composed, deconstructed, and reconstituted one letter at a time, as is as if to say, is transplanted over time, piece by piece.
E
column one begins with “epeac”. the last letter becomes the first.
the next permutation is “eacep”. the initial E forms a column of its own. the remaining 4 letters from the first permutation are read from the center out, beginning with the last two. so, the initial E, followed by AC followed by EP.
the next permutation is “ecepa”. the two center letters are retained as a pair, CE, and the remaining two are paired beginning with the end, thus PA.
the next entry, “ecape”, is produced by pairing the first and last, CA, then reversing the positions of the central pair, EP to PE.
next, “eapec” is formed by repeating the method used to produce “ecepa”.
“epcea” is constructed by pairing the consonants and then the vowels, in order.
“epcae” reverses the vowel pair order.
A
thick lines enclose the Es.
in the first four permutations the E is the central letter.
the first two begin with AC, thus with “ACE”.
the next two begin with AP, so “APE”.
each line can be read as if it comprised of two vocables, the article “A” and the following letter string.
the first two lines are homonymic: “a cepe” and “a ceep”.
each sounding suggests a closing, “asleep”.
associational sound is content, the peace of sleep.
the next two lines are also homonymic: “a pece” and “a peece”.
there is peace, but this is only one form of peace. here we have two others.
P
thick, broken or dotted lines link the two Es is “paece”.
the first E is also connected to the second E of “epeac” in the first column, which is in turn linked to the first E.
thin, wavy lines connect the Cs and Ps.
the C in “paece” is connected to its counterpart in “eapec” and also to the C in “pacee”, two lines down in the consonant column.
the letters so to speak are transplanted from column to column, growing so giving a peace apiece, site to site recombinant sounds of peace.
C
the first four lines begin with CE, which sounding is to say as if with C, which as we see is indeed the case.
we arrive at TRANSPLANT, bottom left, as title, after our reading of the text. all titles in this book are found at the bottom of their pages.
compact instructional gloss, title as terse afterword.
PEACE is as if a preface, a one-word introductory note, and acts as the melody stated, theme in sense sound and sight, and the architext of the poem is constructed of variations on this theme.
january - april 2005
posted by jim leftwich at 8:22 PM
