Tossed Amongst Branchless Trees:

Beckmann, Self-portrait with red scarf, 1917

Errorists join me! We will start “Mal-Quota”—an organization for error extremists. Eclectic eccentrics, I think of small-town peoples. From The eclectic magazine of foreign literature, science, and art, Volume 33 by Harry Houdini Collection (Library of Congress), John Davis Batch: “Oh wavering and new-fangled multitude!” he continues. “Is it not a wonder to consider the inconstant mutability of this uncertain worH! The common people always desiring alterations and novelties of things for the strangeness of the case; which often turneth them to small profit and commodity . . . What hath succeeded all wise men doth know, and the common sort of them hath felt. Therefore, to grudge or wonder at it surely were but fohy; to study a redress, I see noi how it can be holpen, for the inclination and natural disposition of Englishmen is and hath always been to desire alteration of officers.” Then, “How perennial is the English character!”

Music eats. Music eats me. I have been eaten by music. Erik Satie must’ve sat a lot; Phil Jackson sitting on a “rising chair” on the sidelines—this type of sitting? In Satie’s Memoirs of An Amnesiac, he explains, in strange detail, his “working habits” (jeu d’esprit) titled, THE MUSICIAN’S DAY:

“An artist must organize his life. / Here is the exact timetable of my daily activities: / Get up: 7:18 A.M.; be inspired 10:23 to 11:47 A.M. I take / lunch at 12:11 P.M. and / leave the table at 12:14 P.M. / Healthy horse-riding, out in the grounds: 1:19 to 2:53 P.M. / More inspiration: 3:12 to 4:07 P.M. / Various activities (fencing, reflection, / immobility, visits, / contemplation, swimming, etc. . . .) 4:21 to 6:47 P.M. / Dinner is served at 7:16 and ends at 7:20 P.M. Then comes / symphonic readings, out loud: 8:09 to 9:59 P.M. / I go to bed regularly at 10:37 P.M. Once a week (on Tues- / days) I wake up with a start at 3:19 A.M. / I eat only white foods: eggs, sugar, scraped bones; fat / from dead animals; veal, salt, coconuts, chicken cooked in / white water; fruit mold, rice, turnips; camphorated black / puddings, things like pasta, cheese (white), cotton salad / and certain fish (without skins). / I boil my wine and drink it cold mixed with fuchsia juice. / I have a good appetite, but never talk while eating, for fear / of strangling myself. / I breathe carefully (a little at a time). I very rarely dance. / When I walk, I hold my sides and look rigidly behind me. / Serious in appearance, if I laugh it is not on purpose. I / always apologize it nicely. / My sleep is / deep, but I keep one eye open. My bed is / round, with a hole cut out to let my head through. Once / every hour a servant takes my temperature and gives me another. / I have long subscribed to a fashion magazine. I wear a / white bonnet, white stockings and white waistcoat. / My doctor has always told me to smoke. Part of his advice / runs: ‘Smoke away, my dear chap. If you don’t someone / else will.’”

All of this coming from the great minimalist. Minimalism, like Beauty, is only “skin deep.”

Relying on government is like relying on technology. Dishonest computers & ill-filled oil spills, wizened, wiseless & blown to wherewithal. I find more reliability in a sewing machine, the bubblegum that I pop that echoes stickily in a hallway, a spiral-bound notebook full of scribbles, a fading flashlight, a split rubberband, John Lee Hooker's post-war blues, &c.

The Whole comes apart in a possible progress. I want to dine in due time without thinking of eating rhymes as a food source for good times, in the meantime, Sviatoslav Richter plays the piano, sounding so fine. Don DeLillo: “My voice isn’t part of my body. It’s what comes out of my body when I speak. It’s the air which by some miracle we are able to shape into the sounds we wish to make.” Just like that.

—

I would have probably laughed at Mahler had he screamed at me like he would his musicians. I would’ve kept playing the tune; he would’ve needed me, he would have missed me had he kicked me out of the symphony.

I’m a comma that is hooked next to your imposing punctuation. My vowels hide behind tonsil towels, like bowels hiding behind hours.

—

From The Memoirs of Sir Thomas Fmvell Buxton:

“One of my neighbours is a very ill-tempered man; he tries to vex me, and has built a great place for swine close to my walk. So, when I go out, I hear, first grunt, grunt, squeak, squeak; but this does me no harm. I am always in good humour. Sometimes to amuse myself I give a beggar a guinea. He thinks it is a mistake, and for fear I should find it out, off he runs as hard as he can. I advise you to give a beggar a guinea sometimes, it is very amusing. The daughters are very pleasing. The second son is a mighty hunter, and his father lets him buy any horses he likes. He lately applied to the Emperor of Morocco for a first-rate Arab horse. The Emperor sent him a magnificent one; but he died as he landed in England. The poor youth said very feelingly, that was the greatest misfortune he ever had suffered; and I felt strong sympathy with him. I forgot to say, that soon after Mr. Rothschild came to England, Bonaparte invaded Germany. ‘The Prince of Hesse Cassel,’ said Rothschild, ‘gave my father his money; there was no time to be lost; he sent it to me. I had 600,000/. arrive unexpectedly by the post; and I put it to such good use, that the Prince made me a present of all his wine and his linen.’”

Such texts, whoa’d and slow’d down. “Sl-sl-slow down!” Certain texts make me feel coo-coo-cuckoo'd by the companion of fretting. My throat had a miscarriage! Words are stuck! My tongue has steeped, apparently kneaded like claygunk. Recently, I wrote a poem titled, “Love Stakes Me”:

Within the shadows of my mind, there,
with marching feet & chanting rhyme,
are the long-legged haunts of Loves fled
in extraordinary melodies of time, an air

unfastened by memory’s reeling—drenched
& restless like noisy quarrels clenched.
I pause, unlike hours, flattering love’s despair
with a grateful heart; my mind’s vocalist defined.

Influenced by W.B. Yeats, I wrote this in solitude while (I think) eating sandwiches. Also, at the same time (not influenced by Yeats), I overly-pondered:

I sit here
& ponder

a better poem,
a better

dream for a better
poem.

The ants that are
crawling

upon the white wall
in front of me

near the hole
in the wall

near the door
knob’s lock;

They are the poem;
this poem.

This-this-this is not
a poem.

I thought: “axed you a question while I waxed poetic sessions, no answers and no confessions.” Hmm, why am I starving? “I just ate.” The other day, a seventy-five year old man spoke to me of what they called he sd The Old Army. He was a partaker of it. He sd that back then they could kick you In the g. maximus & get away with it. Back then they owned you completely. I thought later that it was perhaps like a shadow following the body & now the times have changed. Times are changing like posters on walls. Idols & icons torn away. Replaced with newer ones before & after the quinceaños. Smoking-gun evidence. Military-disarray & fruit punch laws. Thus the body at this point leaving its shadow behind or it is the shadow leaving its body behind? Either way it springs for safety & drips like oil, like secrets unfolding in a diary entry & then there was a conversation of a conversation about anger: He sd, What is the point of getting angry? Getting mad is much worse than the problem.

Lately, I have felt shifted away from all humanity. The sounds of my Arctic, a silent monster, a roaming of unity, an attraction of latitude, perhaps. I have to experience the excitement of a dynamic landscape: the flora, the fauna, the heart and what is not there; a Plato ratio.

Brunelleschi would have awe’d over the architectural domes in my heart.

The camera continues to try and maintain supremacy. I cut it off worse than a one-liner or a two-timer. Constabel: “I always sit till I see some living thing; because if such appears, it is sure to be appropriate to the place.” Inappropriateness would have certainly been to merely shut one’s eyes and imagine living things? The sense in this? Nearly absurd. Beautifully. It could be like a “folk saying.”


؟؟؟؟؟

Adamitically Frumpled.

The photographer Walker Evans, in a 1974 Polaroid portrait shot by John Benson

Stanzes/Stances

Head of Dr. Bauer (Kopf Dr. Bauer) by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

Hieronymus sd that the face is the mirror of the mind, and the eyes without speaking confess the secrets of the heart. “Whenever we see someone we like, our pupils grow larger. It is almost as if our eyes are trying to see as much of this person as possible. This is an involuntary and uncontrollable physiological response.” My tongue is an Aesop fable. Life, to some, is deemed Shack. My life gives the whole expanse under heaven. We all appear in orange vests. We prevent anything from becoming a scene. A clepsydra ticks in my ear after taking a shower. As a hint, I drown backwardness into full growth like an object that is cast in plaster. The “forward march” of the ground is created like an armature that was not intended for arms. Michael McClure’s answer to the question, “What is the role of the poet in our society?”: “The same as any other artist – to maintain the thoroughfares, to maintain the pathways of the imagination in a society that would close down the pathways of the imagination. We all find social functions, also. We’ll be environmentally inclined, or biologically inclined, or socially committed. But what we do as artists is to maintain free pathways for the imagination.”Worth to note, too, is Paul Merchant: “Poetry gives most pleasure / when only generally / & not perfectly understood.” I should also say, who needs a Poetic License? just take all documents to your local meat grinder and nibble nicely on your money where the Latin texts are and dip your feet where the shark-fin rubs beneath your soles. Lay the foundation so that the eye can sustain the error and paralyze the air, like to fillet today or to mar tomorrow.

I study hands in paintings and watch film after film. I shake in a muted lovejoy picking out the flutters from my heart, releasing them as dovesongs, plough-soils of the soul, watching them as they return again like boomerangs, diving back into the familiar pooling air of my symphonic chest. Earlier, I observed the front part of the ant’s body that was stuck in a small sticky liquid. It tugged and tugged, pulled and pulled; attempting to escape the trap. It was unsuccessful. Eventually the ant pulled itself apart, completely in half, the lower-half of the body, lethargic; the upper-half still moving. I softly blowed on it, sadly, and the antennas moved wildly.

One lives in such an environment, perhaps in the modern world versus the classical traditions of the past, where we do not let the right lobe of the brain know what the left lobe thinketh. The truth is, Americans are terrified. Terrified on the inside, being that we are more afraid of ourselves than ever before. The galloping corruption produced by a meaningless routine of production, distribution, and consumption, as well as governmental crackdowns and finger-wagging has all but become the overall perspective, but it looks as though the wheel has begun to shift ever so slightly. Earlier: Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, sonnets and sunsets . . . re-arranged certain words in Shakespeare's Sonnet 33 to make it this: Full glorious morning with patient eye, kissing with heavenly alchemy of celestial face.

Where is the snowfall, like an important guest that never arrives. We are horse, we are animal, we are simple yet our words have physiological effects when the tongue taps into language, buries itself deep into bodies, the way a small child could be anywhere, the way dry balconies crumble unexpectedly, and I contemplate where you go when you cry, and I contemplate everything like why titles were given to seas and oceans. Love must be filled slowly over time, and not like the steadfast-flutterings of a bird, or fancying one’s limbs of Greek dances in a drunken pub full of chimps that feel that they have the answer to every question. Coadjutoring mouths, encounters with time like weathered barns, the way fireflies rise from the thick grass. We are all sparks upon yearly-stints, or stilts, as if it is a farce to have pre-registered bodies, the way attention is given to spaces between legs; the lack of moral gifting. Hold back the wall, reprint my utterance, summery-steam rising from roads, that kind of utterance, faint whiff of breathable words, everyone within their nests, this is life, stabilized through meditation, flappable herrings in the river, the echoing of psychedelia. I am a needy bird. Is this a proper feeling? Your tiny legs, the spurs in your throat make my bones feel perplexed--muscles attached boil like soapsuds. Your language has me “free falling.” I peer out into the world, everyone scrambling as if this were the French Revolution, as if Hitler had been spotted, found, was still alive at 110 years old, his fingers rotting, but his eyes still fiery, his throat clucking like a wild rooster, and the spot where his moustache once was, now hollowed out. I am steaming like a boat on your river. Putting aside these thoughts would be like being surrounding by Nothingness, existing in private hands. Club soda and fine fabrics. Leave birthdays alone. Overlap me with hearty tracing.

*

June Wayne (once known as the “Joan of Art”) says that “artists make art and women make babies, but the use of the word CREATE to describe both processes is confusing.”

*

Rumi: “We are out of our cages with our wings spread, yet we do not lift off.” I just glided back to earth and proved this quote wrong.


Supine Spine.

A kind of bomb diggidy.


If “death’s shadow is white,” what is darker than that?

*

Kurt Schwitters: “A door may happen to fall shut, but this is not by chance. It is a conscious experience of the door, the door, the door, the door.”

*

Jabès: “To fall silent in turn, with the / hope of dissolving in to it.”

*

I remember the way the curtains fell on your arm, the way a sugar cube could have been spoiled in a cloud of water. The cup is empty now. You snapped it like a Snapple, a snapping turtle. You drank it wildly as if needing stamina to remain.

I live temperately in the meagre parse of a back and forth elsewhere. Ah, we twentieth century children, the New Futurists, nevermind the robots. I just want to make Nothing light up my cauldron, or the piano through which complexity develops its tired codes of musical heartbeats in the gassed or glassy chest. This is a self-interview. No poem ever totalizes what I want to express. Tiresomeness, this is poetry, reductions & counter-critical inward-dissipances that whiffs at every blazing fastball, sounds like a cobbled-togetherness of generous lips; bypassed, not seen at all. Now that my Language is abstract, must I write memoirs at such a youthful age? Buzz-kill analysis & observation, as if I need sheer longevity to secure wisdom. What is spookier than writers, than sharpening a pencil, than the way one's adam's apple looks when one is humming a beat. If only this beard could bend. My head often swims in a kind of silver perch; my nostrils stroke my breath like impatience at a traffic light. My mind plays back every detail of every second of my existence, often simultaneously; makes my face itch.

Hocus focus. Foxus on e`ry word, blank and you well misc it. The way I miss my head in the morning when I do not look in the mirror. I only brush my teeth with light these days, your light, the corridors of youth. Who has conceived the ingenious idea of calling here from Florida, California, Connecticut and Los Angeles? Even the wind must find a way to reconnect with itself after the birds have pushed it astray. Birds text one another from nests in trees; their song is vibrant, more brilliant than ours. I walk outside with you in thought, where I hold you in my mind, where you follow me wherever I go, where I repeat your name, our conversations. It is the way certain plants make you chirp certain words. Your face is in my horizon. There is a building off in the distance, a red flag waves in the wind. Your face is a blue sea upon my mountainous land. I see you in the tiny white waves that foam. Your face is in the green lawn, an energetic fawn. Your face is in the maps of the world, in the veins of every field and yet am I merely a fantasy walking robotically amidst your expanding mind? The light on walls in ethereal stripes tries my patience. The way things look in dreams.

*

Coleridge (Biographia Literaria, 1817): “genuine admiration of a great poet is a continuous under-current of feeling; it is everywhere present, but seldom anywhere as a separate excitement.”

*

E. Pound: “A true noun, an isolated thing, does not exist in nature. Things are only the terminal points, or rather the meeting points, of actions cross-sections cut through actions, snapshots. Neither can a pure verb, an abstract motion, be possible in nature. The eye sees noun and verb as one: things in motion, motion in things . . .”

*

What are people willing to do that is out of their Comfort Zone? Surveillance of the heart, always: there must always be a form of control. Interruption is needed to take photographs. A polyrythmic pamphlet, a pedigree of combos. Do not ever force yourself into apprehension and regret over simplicity and force of diction. Turn your whole subsequent existence into a vast tangled harvest of Imbalanced Consideration where theory, terminology, inclusions, aversions and illusions and nonsense and portability of resistance and detail (inobscure or not) are accurately furnished. Do not do these things merely to receive feedback, however, but more-so in being able to specify the unspecifiable; to be able to stick the straw into the supervisional mind to detect Rarified mentalities of calculations, thoughts, ponderances, where elliptical (illusional, perhaps: detailed or undetailed) meaninglessness (if you can focus on it) becomes an alteration of the senses. Allow energy to be transferred via reception of the new self-portrait. Instinct plays a role in animal life, yet has a penchant for abstraction within humanity. If it can be grasped, does that mean it is false? If what cannot be false is permanently real, being that it remains sustained in thought, is there an abyss where truth gives way to void? Where is the escape hatch? A burden in the accidental womb that feeds the unintentional fetus? This presentation is not for comparing male and female, nor is this a presentation at all. I simply value communication with myself. The Why of a writing session is sometimes obscure to itself.

Just say whatever needs to be said.

‘q’ <— a letter with horns.

Margarita Bofiliou, Mixed Technique