go see that

1.

go see that



bird foreigner.
the succulents.
to be peaceable.
to wrangle that.

distant answer.


(nothing ringing)



2.


the miser and his ilk.
flunky and the floozie.
a hunk named Dory.

not that.
all over that.



3.

clothe me.

not with enchantment's
one day sale


speedy crinolines
the clunky rich

my speech 

biceps



4.


get another movie
of a dead singer

light gone lime

say you were always there
for the songs

The ground had it.

The ground had it.

"Figures! I’ve had it. You always get the good arts."

Bullets.

•
•
•
•

A question for men:

Do you use a booklight in bed?

Egyptian

A la Lamoureux, hey mr., I checked out my Egyptian astrological sign...

Isis Honorable, straightforward and idealistic. Active and self-confident. Colors: male: white, female: blue Compatible Signs: Osiris, Thoth Dates: Mar 11 - Mar 31, Oct 18 - Oct 29, Dec 19 - Dec 31 Role: Goddess of motherhood, women, and magic; goddess of the South; protector of Imseti (the son of Horus who watched over the canopic jar containing the liver) Appearance: Woman wearing the hieroglyph for "throne" on her head What is Your Egyptian Zodiac Sign? Designed by CyberWarlock of Warlock's Quizzles and Quandaries

Dear Squire

There was a question about the squire....thanks for asking...


Dear Squire,

You are the upheaval of olden language found in our poems. Our golden time machine. Logically this may not compute(grr). You have a future, and I am asking you to see into our future: its ore, whether profitable or extractable. Profit's a retrofitted disaster (more on that later). We is problematic, but I keep trying. No. This is nothing like my other poems.

Your servant,
2006

Back door of the Blog

It's been so long that I feel like I am sneaking into the back door of the blog.

Rusty doorknob, stained glass smeared with pigeon's work.
Dirty hand, knowable.

Beard alone. Quick.

Thwack the able
on the heavy-handed. We got a long way to go un-
ruly. The tools

are big and rusty. You will never take conundrum
away from me. Discombobulation, either,

sweet miser, even though your third-grade waddling
English teacher loved it too.

-ThE TodDlers coMe Running. ThEy DO

Dear Squire,

Dear Squire,

We write to you from the future. We are unsure of our future’s future. More on this later. You may be happy to know Be Bop has few allusions in poems. Any dances connoting foods are on the wayside. Wait, you wouldn’t know this since it came from your future. But you, dearest squire have risen high into the ranks of pirates and gold slingers. This may not sound such a prize, but we in our post-postmodern leanings—I forget where we are now—, you see, gurgle with two-parts Listerine, one-part …(this brings me to my question, what was your favorite drink?)

Your servant,
2006

Tanning

Here's a great snipit of an interview wiht Dorothea Tanning. Few years old. But in case you have never seen it....Interview

Pray Tell

Pray Tell

When you were around, extricate became extra karate.
One more pork chop too many. One night you told me

doctors are in business to tell us we have high cholesterol,
or how the other animals are planning a coup inside us.

And you thought global warming was a problem. Well, it is.
There’s a movie about it by the former Vice President

and people go to the theatres
when it gets too hot outside. This is brilliant.

When you were around, remorse was a much better morsel.
See,

I can’t even do it when you’re not around.

“Oh to be seventeen years old
Once again,” sang the red-haired man, “and not know that poetry
Is ruled with the scepter of the dumb, the deaf, and the creepy!”

-Kenneth Koch, Excerpt from “Fresh Air”

My Trip to the Book Annex: Adventures in Dialogue

“What are you looking for?”
“Oh, something I can’t live without. Lately I’ve been looking for Charles Olson.”
“You like the guys.”
“Uh, I like the guys and girls,” matching the informality of guys with girls, which still doesn’t match. I pull out a 1967 Poetry Anthology. “In this they only have Dickinson and Marianne Moore,” as if noting this disgrace shows I’m not lost, but she goes on to provide me with direction.
“Adrienne Rich is great. Plath and Sexton too, though depressing.”

“Thanks.”

The Lamp

Since I haven't written in awhile I give you a poem, that I love, by Charles Olson.


The Lamp

you can hurry the pictures toward you but
there is that point that the whole thing itself
may be a passage, and that your own ability
may be a factor in time, in fact that
only if there is a coincidence of yourself
& the universe is there then in fact
an event. Otherwise—and surely here the cinema
is large—the auditorium can be showing
all the time. But the question is
how you yourself are doing, if you in fact
are equal, in the sense that as a like power
you also are there when the lights
go on. This wld seem to be a
matter of creation, not simply
the obvious matter, creation
itself. Who in fact is any of us
to be there at all? That’s what
swings in the matter, also—
the beam hanging from

Fireworks

Fireworks
Originally uploaded by cherword.

Back from Brooklyn...

no squirrels

Choose the one to watch. Had there been a need for language the language would be watched. Pull-horses. Ocean bluffs. Fondly speaking. Less fondly, pond made it to the snapshots from a throwaway. Near settler’s rock are the surmountable leaches most talk of burning.

On the mainland, as I heard the islander refer to us mainlanders, a snapping turtle crossed the street. While I yelled turtle you yelled snapping. Had this been a reason not to stop? One night I read my favorite chapter thirty times. Short, slow passage of the turtle.

Walking through the same path never gives me the same path. People remember more of how you make them feel, than what you say. For today my adages are simple.

Stick it. When you hear me complain, I had to convince you not to rip off the anti-abortion bumper sticker from the neighbor’s car. Otherwise known as pig.

Rainy day fun: Visit a grave at "Find a Grave"

Had there been Concord

(as i have mentioned before, i keep this space for revising, allowing poem to morph into different poems, try to break up the preciousness of the "publicized" writing. in my revision, there is a constant rejuvenation of forms--breaking the line in variant ways or shifting from proem to poem--so of course the words keep changing. i like to look at them in these different ways, like a family, I then decide whom to adopt if i may rely on such matronly language)


1.

Practice undoing. Others try to collect the undoing.
One takes heat
for forms spilling into other forms. I separate

our landlady’s pills, placing them in the day or night
container. No deviation. The cat needs to be fed.
I am full and thinking of wolf fish.

In Walden Pond the man caught crawfish, feeding them
to a nearby bass, I thought of casting longer sentences.
To what end? I ask myself. I ask the cat.

2.

You want to feel alongside, and are not convinced.
I change the names since this is not a record. One
wants the feeling, alongside. I am not convinced

anyone is here, with
a lot of practice. My own traps
set.


3.

What is adored is the permeable.
I adore the permeable.
My own desires abstracted

by tracing a headstand on my wall—hundreds of feet high,
toes the onlookers—not the man
on his cell phone who constantly places himself

in public spaces. Placed somewhere to meet someone.
You know, the ones who call themselves. A stranger
skirting the puddingstone or the granite wall,

covered in piss-colored paint, is on the side
I’d normally walk. I need to know
the materials.

4.

Museum-head. The woman
ready to throw her head over the terrace,
since (logical propositions abound)

baby is too large.
You said so yourself.
She looked like me.


5.

The sculpture next to the video
of the sculpture animated.

Stainless Steel. Steel.
Copper. Bronze.

P-a-t-i-n-a.

Worn out, stockpiled
beauty of damage.

6.

Paintings of downloaded images
layered with digital geometrics
gave me the creeps. See a random woman,

random leg, five images in one room
were too much for me.

Permeability.

Do prestigious words
have more legs?

Our progeny
will laugh at words called 50 cents.


6, starting over

Octopus legs regenerate.
He talks of pulling one off, getting lost
in the ink. Keep the spear gun at home.

Sugar at half-mast.
I have no reason.
(Consider weather patterns.)


7.

The can of chirping flipped over
inside the birdcage, and the mechanical parts
floating in oil imparted a jellyfish, an ocean.

The sky
a jellyfish making love to a can
of chirping. Gives the sense of

the point of impact
where Norwegians build
a doomsday repository for seeds.

Chronicles

Practice undoing and the others try to collect the undoing. One takes heat for forms spilling into other forms. As I separate our landlady’s pills, placing them in the day or the night container, there can be no deviation. The cat needs to be fed. I am full and thinking of wolf fish.

In Walden Pond the man caught crawfishes and fed them to a nearby bass as I thought about steering the flux of longer sentences. To what end?, I ask myself. I ask the cat.

One wants to feel alongside. One is not convinced. I changed the names since this is not a record. One wants the feeling of being alongside the sentence and is not convinced. Neither am I, convinced anyone is here. What would change if there were?

What is adored is the permeable. I adore the permeable. My own desires are abstracted by tracing a headstand on my wall—hundreds of feet high, my toes the onlookers—not the man talking on his cell phone who constantly places himself in public spaces. Placed somewhere to meet someone I suppose. You know the ones who call themselves.

The man skirts the puddingstone or granite wall on the side I’d normally walk; it is covered in piss-colored paint. I need to know the materials.

The woman ready to throw her head over the terrace, since (logical propositions abound) the baby is too large. You said so yourself. She looked like me.

The images downloaded from the internet with a layer of digital geometrics gave me the creeps. What is seen is a random woman, a random leg, five images in one room were too much for me. Permeability. Does a prestigious word have more legs?

Octopus legs regenerate. He talks of pulling one off, getting lost in the ink. Keep the spear gun at home. Sugar at half-mast. I have no reason. Weather patterns are considered.

The can of chirping flipped over inside the birdcage, and the mechanical parts in oil imparted the sense of a jellyfish in the ocean. The sky looks like a jelly fish making love to a can of chirping.

At the point of impact Norwegians build a doomsday repository for seeds. The sculpture appears next to a video of the sculpture animated. We stood. Who does the animating? I love the sound can. Can you make the sound?

Dispatx

Dispatx does it again with a great edition on the Plague of Language.

Two City Living Gripe

It's quasi-me until I get my box of books, foolishly uninsured. Hurry please. After force feeding a quitting meter quarters, quarreled with the post office jammed at the quay in my head since Midwest to East Coast transit has no loaded harbors, so no flotsam. What the qua! Are we back to mules? What about trucks or planes or precision or my books?

the moon

When I was born the moon was a waning crescent. What was it doing when you were born? See this site. Do tell.

Back in Boston only three days and I attend a poetry reading by Xtina Strong who is heading to Brooklyn (we should now shut the gates to deter great poets from leaving Boston for New York), and by Jack Kimball whom I was glad to have heard read. Xtina showed two films that stirred up thoughts of Sept 11, the War in Iraq, and the Katrina floods with newclips from the nemesis George W. Bush and Others, and voiceovers by Xtina posing questions about the language we use (operation, etc.) and our wartime maneuvers (another skanky word, though not included). Jack Kimball read a series of short untitled poems (what was that last haiku-ish poem of the ovary?) that gave me a sense of a person's need to write to see what can be done, and equally to question what has been done. This self is ever-ready to take some shots: when I was born I was so ugly "the doctor slapped my mother." (Sorry, don't know the exact line.) At each turn of the page, I was helicoptered into a new situation, often with an overlooker critiquing this scene. He can sure pack a wallop of voices condensed in a few words.

I'm quite horrible at this type of review, especially covering such a great reviewer as Kimball, which probably makes me want to try it more. I will not fear failure. Off I go, I will not fear failure...


Related links:

Demolicious: The great reading series, more to come in the fall
Xtina's site
Jack Kimball's blog


Now I'm off considering the possibilities of the typo "needless to see."

Other great movies to watch, if you trust me:

Black Cat, White Cat; and Underground by Emir Kustarica. I'm telling you, you will want to dance. I'm telling you twice.

Cabaret

If you have never seen the 1972 film Cabaret with Liza Minnelli, etc., directed by Bob Fosse, watch now! so good.

To Mother

This is not a letter, but a duel. Parlez-vous français ? Not I.
And you? Don't teach me technology but classify flowers
on my behalf. Luckily, you don’t need to teach me anything.

T-Rex is my prescription for the fear of regressing. I remember
when I realized that my friends' parents were professionals,
or that they were home schooled. I’ve been smoking

in the backyard, wearing pioneer clothing. Put that in your pipe
and savor it. What happens if I were writing a letter to you,
but in the writing I realize the letter isn’t written to you.

Isn't that what happens? My desirous inclination
for direct address becomes apparent. What is it then,
to come clean? From one scenario to the next,

I am shifty. At nap time, I test the waters;
The pillow is testy, the day is not testicular.
There is one thing for sure, you love to line dance.

Fondly,
A Daughter: a desire and an inclination

Need love. Feel depressed. A springtime phenomenon it seems for me.

Some on Ultraism

I initially posted a comment in response to Liz Henry, who has been responding to my promises of writing about the Ultraists and Creacionists of Spain and Latin America. Thanks! Liz, are going to make me stay on track, I know it. I feel it. I've been distracted by Dada, and classes that keep coming....

This could interest others, so let me send you,quite honestly, a freewrite of my thoughts. Hold on, ya'll.

Around 1918, at the onset on ultraism in Spain, before it later expanded to Argentina when Borges moved back, the group comprised of others such as Guillermo de Torre, Rafael Cansinos-Assens, Gerardo Diego, Juan Larrea, etc. (ladies?) and they wanted an avant-guard movement distinct from the others, a movement for the Spanish-speaking world. They had the need to react against the modernism of Ruben Dario of Nicaragua--a particular history to which they wanted to respond. The magazines that heralded Ultraismo were called "Nosotros" or "Ultra" between the timespan of 1918-1922.

Creacionism is often considered the first Latin American avant-guard movement since it began in 1912. When Vicente Huidobro from Chile showed up on the scene in Madrid, he was en route from Paris, and I believe the Ultraists thought his ideas were "tainted" by those foreign influences. Or, at least, Borges was quite militant about his reactions at the time, which he later denounced. People such as Guillermo de Torre were likely less interested in such critical distinctions. Huidobro would often be a part of these literary conversation circles at Madrid's Cafe Colonial, and it seems that Huidobro "recruited" people to creacionism by the nature of his exuberance. Some left the ultraist movement, so to speak, for creacionism. They would write creacionist poems. (Later I could talk about some of the publications, and possibly some of the aesthetics differences--but that's almost suicidal when they are so difficult to name. The question being: What does it mean to change from an ultraist aesthetic to a creacionist one?)

Yes, these distinctions between movements are so slippery. At the same time that Borges was trying to make these distinctions, he was drawing upon the work of Apollinaire or Mallarme. And, as do many manifestos, ultraism embraced many other writers prior to the naming of this movement.

(To me, the study of manifestos can be one big psychological study of the literary psyche...but that's another topic.) I will later post some sources too. And of course, you are welcome to add your information. I think this is really a collective building of knowledge.

Peace,

Cheryl

Cranky?

I don’t want to write about my feelings
I don’t want to write the books I just read
A wad of them

I do want to post some quotes
but I don’t want to type them
I don’t want to type

I don’t want to keep track of blogrolls
I don’t want to appear any way
So I don't appear

That's the problem--the crisis of imagined identity
Uggh

I don’t want to figure out how to fix this template.

That being said, I've been reading a lot of dada: Duchamp, Tzara, The Baroness, Mina Loy, Breton (who split from Dada and stirred up Surrealism)

Have you ever checked out the "International Dada Archive"?

To Mina Loy (revision)

To Mina Loy or Nima Oly or Amin Yol


I don’t want to leave you.
I’ll go back.

Courteous discomfort. Ideas
in eyes, an allotment; the facets
of all your inventions—

an invented face, “an implied whole.”
I think you’d like the word mug.

Did something happen in the reign
of your Adolescence?

Mine was pretty screwy.


*


Today in class we chuckled about the Curtain
starring as the Curtain, and of course, WCW and You
in Lima Beans. I’m glad you didn’t fall for him.

I think I love you. I think you are a hatchet
and hatchets are lovely. Literature
is a corpse-friendly place.


*

The editors are searching
for your lamps. Who has hidden a broken
lamp of yours? Today I don’t want to look
up a word and find it doesn’t exist.

I think existing is really no big deal.


*

The security man at the art museum said,
“I’m so old I don’t know if I’m alive or dead.”

Reply: “What are dead things?
What does ‘deadened’ really mean?
I mean, really?”

He walked away walkie talkie in hand.
I used to have one of those.



*

Mina, I think you were my neighbor.

“Get out of my yard,” you’d holler.
Would you, could you, ever yell at me?

Two things tell me a lot about people:
whether and how they yell,
and their bathrooms.

Mina, did you ever have a yard? Yell
across a yard?

To some, it’s so important. They say,
“Better get out your shears.”

Let’s take a walk, Mina. Really,
can I call you that?

bendy

urged worm
I am engaged
with bendy straws

urged worm
I protested a lot
with placards

bendy worm
urged me to step
so as to see steps

bendy worm
assuming
multiples

bendy worm
could've beaten up
calculus

its lessons stir
up in the brain
its functions

playthings-
serious
at some point

urge bendy
to return
as carbonated

balloon

Teaching "America"

Kept trying

in reaching


Never (resigned?)


Haven’t found

Nothing in the


How they thought they were superior
We are superior they thought

Everyone wants to be us

No one would want to be us because…

Have them mouth this

We are inferior because…

Mina Loy or Nima Oly or Amin Yol

I don’t want to leave you. I’ll go back.

I think you’d like the word “mug.”

Courteous discomfort.
Ideas in eyes, allotment
of a whole lot.

Facets are full of brochures
of your inventions. “The implied whole,”
I liked it when my professor said that.

Did something actually happen in your Adolescence—
in its reign and jawbones? Mine was pretty screwy.

Startling enough, I may have broken a lamp of yours.
Somebody else has to have one. The editors are searching.

Today in class we chuckled about the Curtain
starring as the Curtain, and of course, WCW and You
in Lima Beans. I’m glad you didn’t fall for him.

I think I love you. I think you are a hatchet
and hatchets are lovely.

This really is a corpse-friendly place. I just mean literature.
Some days I don’t want to look up a word and find it doesn’t exist.

I think existing is really no big deal.

The art museum security man said, “I am so old
I don’t know if I’m alive or dead.” “Excuse me,

is the art alive? It’s old. What are dead things?
What does ‘deadened’ really mean? I mean, really?”
He got out his walkie talkie and walked away. I used to have one of those.

Mina, I think you were my neighbor. “Get out of my yard,” you’d holler.
Would you, could you, ever yell at me if I walked through your yard?

What were you like when you yelled? There are two things that tell me a lot about people: whether and how they yell, and their bathrooms.

Mina, did you ever have a yard? They seem so important around some people. They say, “Get out your sheers. Your blades of grass are about to touch the sidewalk.”

Let’s take a walk, Mina. Really, can I call you that?

Librarything

My version of the "librarything"--not very orderly. Maybe I will begin "lovenotefile"? Anyone know code?

a company of moths

Finally reading Palmer's _A Company of Moths_, and this isn't a review. I realize that every time I see the word "Company" and its warmth, I can't help thinking of Creeley. What a wonderful legacy to leave, among many others, in our world's corporate-driven frenzies. In the case you haven't yet looked up Palmer's use of "windrow" (which I also love), see definition below. To those who already know the word, pat your toochie, sweet cheeks.


A windrow is a row of cut hay or small grain crop. It is allowed to dry before being baled, combined, or rolled. For hay, the windrow is often formed by a hay rake, which rakes hay that has been cut by a mower into a row. For small grain crops which are to be harvested, the windrow is formed by swather which both cuts the crop and forms the windrow.
The term may also be applied to a row of any other material such as snow[1].

In the case of snow, windrows are created by snow plows as they plow streets. The windrow may block driveways. Some municipalities have windrow removal service where a smaller plow goes to each individual driveway to clear the windrow. Most cities simply make the home owner clear the windrow to their own driveway. A few cities will plow the windrow to the center of the street, blow the snow into trucks, and haul it away.

Good ole "windrow removal service."

Once again, I find myself linking to Conjunctions. Some great poems and an interview from Rosmarie Waldrop:
http://www.conjunctions.com/justout.htm

Happy New Year. The greeting has not yet expired.