Louis Armand, from DI/ODE

 

 DI/ODE prompt

 
from DI/ODE
 


CCCXI (after Brian Birchall)
 
obscurity & clarity being common viewpoints
relating to, & relating w/, the invocating
symbol, narrative & theme, about “-isms”
& the hermeneutic “as,” or the kind of truth
time becomes through public relations,
i.e. post-mortem, yet w/ composure, composed,
a “person” of  “character,” flattered before
flattened, each the penultimate obscenity
in the eyes of the other, like the untrans
latability of metaphor, virtue or the politics
of the self-made, all being correct but
manifestly untrue, the way a stranger's mind
is always sleeping in yr head, setting off
dialectical melodramas whenever “the thing”
comes home to face the music. (3.6.2023)
 
 
CCCXIII
 
rum days & the stink wafting in off the trans
atlantic garbage pile sets lice on edge.
scanning empty space for the detail
that slipped away / like a footnote marked
“classified” blocking the shower grate.
walls heave & groan w/ the weight
of a sea straining to overpower / the way
a nation wrestles w/ its conscience.
nights of crude symbolic melodrama
leave you drained. unsure if the counterattack
has already begun or the tactical re
treat has reached an impasse. amidst
the smoke & fog of war / a leopard creeps
through underbrush in full view of the
thermal-image duplicator. the scene is ar
ranged, a cruel mouth for a crueler
month, a body undulating w/ microbic life
marked unsafe. well any moron can part a sea
in their sleep but only the true-
of-heart show sympathy for the lice.
how once on the fire-escape of a Harlem ten
ement a vision of William Blake appeared
& the blue hand of Shiva wringing
a brown dishrag sky / if the flesh-made-word
is also a bombshelter / if a poem is an ark
against a savage tide (one savagery
outdoes another) (for we had beauty on our side).
 
 
CCCXV
 
to quote the eternal Madam Wittgenstein, about that
of which y’re bone ignorant, keep yr trap shut.
every night for an encore an airraid siren.
y’ve got to be a hard nut not to crack on command,
the way a hypnotist dredges up the suggestion
long-submerged & suddenly yr running naked
in the street, screaming IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD
to fanatical laughter from the carriage trade.
the visualisation of G.O.D. is nothing but a disaster.
have we supplanted ourselves in the scheme of things?
receipt of stolen property is punishable by 10 years
under section 188(1)(b) of the Crimes Act 1900.
unless y’re the state. well what good's a voice
w/ a soaked rag stuffed down yr throat in the middle
of the night? choked on a crumb from the negotiating
table, going hungry’s an inalienable right.
 
 
CCCXVI
 
breathe. don't try to put yr thoughts in order.
yr doppelgänger's sitting on the steps
intently observing yr exit rituals.
“kunststruck,” you say, like an annoying guest
who plays the same partytrick twice.
everything cld just as well be expressed
in silence, the way silence is. tonight yr eyes
are magnets, glitched inalienables,
meaning “overly prone.” attachment
to worldly things as opposed to otherworldly
“things.” as sure as there are ears on a
bat, for example, the potential for mutiny
even in the most withering compliance.
a lifelong archipelago of missed affects dot-
dash-dot against the horizon, being
that region in which timeliness extinguishes
itself. yr uninvited attentions wander off
whenever y’re not looking, or they
aren’t & you only seem to be. on one side
Magellanic Clouds on the other a smeared
cataract indicates the view back is still there
over the next hill, where it promised to be.
 
 
CCCXVII
 
Daniel Ellsberg died (+16.6.23) & lately Ken Bolton
has been moved to speak ill of dead poets
& the war dead keep adding-up like bad coin
in circumdubious Free World economy.
pointless to compare the vocal range of
who at the top-of-their-lungs scream day & night
to cries & whispers in a lost submarine.
portraits of unclarity deem us incidental
to mirrorworld subterfuge as a combedback toupee
or a scalpcollector’s grin reading between
eyelines & smeared toothpaste hello beautiful!
well today's another day & bells & whistles
& a hot wind blowing yr brains out
in weather too heavy to think under anyway
though love's always a consolation if you can afford it.
 
 
CCCXIX
 
solstice comes & the world has moved on
from social injustice BILLIONAIRE
ENEMA LOST AT SEA trumps 500
DROWNED MEDITERRANEAN REFUGEES
but Europe long before homo
sapiens’ false start was already “civil
ised” -- the long march of mis
information's child & abortive coup d’
états played on a carousel whose
happy endings turn out unwell.
                                                            tomorrow's headline sez
                                                            y’re better off
                                                            dead / but will that
                                                            be so comforting / then?
 
 
—Louis Armand

Tom Prime, Three excerpts from Dogs and Sorcerers

The Sorcerer

Digital Bricolage

Daniel Y. Harris 

Three excerpts from Dogs and Sorcerers
Tom Prime

 

Excerpt 1

Glass shards picked out of eyeballs were multiple channels intermixed on a tube TV with untuned rabbit ears—a slack of scrawled on skin. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and chlorine gas sundered lips bushwhacked. Plastic melted onto the wisteria branches of a Dunkeroos ad while genitals were sewn shut. His tongue is a tong. Soundtrack is drowning kittens. An eschaton of K-Mart commercials. Ron Popeil’s Pudding Hair Filler; opprobrious voices resound from a standing pool of Muesli in a bellybutton; likewise erect slices of stodgy basements with sinister bins overtop a news anchor’s forecast.

A spatchcocked Rohypnol kid’s juniper berried body. Mire of putrefying dendrites. And his huffing, the giganticness of his carcinogenic musk hoped to extend a week’s worth of work into a month’s. Pressure weighted porousness. I was skewered. He held my body above his, were opposite poles magnetized. In a skillet of deep-fried scuzz, his glassblower vein-pike.

Excerpt 2

A nest of bees pollinates the flowers of my sniffling hair. The a priori paypig. Veins lick the rivulets of countless cellphones. Lowered into the well of tusks.

No squishy flesh for bones, enamel claimed by the bruxism. The animal is buzzarded, but it has lactating sheets for fingers.

Snuff our inklings, recede into troughs, and beget inches as a leaden clot.

The production hill is a detachable organ transplanted onto the “and” ant-farm; purple polyps and murk-pops findom.

Excerpt 3

Wretched an ozone hole scatter of gamma rays. The water molecules obliterated. An ashy wasteland cloaked in hues of shoe lacquer. Immersed in dizzy lights, the gullets pilled themselves in the hard drive. These hermeneutic homes clout-like and grilled were a lone bee hearted in the gills. Hilly mess of heliotropes. The polemicist gummed up the gall bladder. Grifted by a yet unscabbed perpendicular steak knife slash. Must I reapply the fetid bandages in a Villanelle style? Tailed with the monophonic escape window, sieve of perch carks my proud feet through the wilting thumps. 

Men exhale hoarfrost from elbow-webbed tubs. Corpuscular street of fast-food midden. Huffing freon, glistening breath girdled by clots of infested cells: renegade teeth. The telephone shat in the ski mask, threatened glances; camera is waxing.

Irene Koronas, excerpts from chiaroscuros Volume VIII, The Grammaton Series

chiaroscuros

Manuscript Cover for chiaroscuros

Volume VIII, The Grammaton Series

Acrylic on Canvas, 50 x 50

Irene Koronas 

 

37°
 
 
A hydroxyapatite chamber
with arcs and vaults
triangulates the hauntskull
 
stuffed with curlcalcium
bovine bones
blacken the lithograph
 
microchill the trepanation
the burrhole in metal
the drill in frameabsence
 
baroque in hydraulics
arthropodal limbs
bodyquake
 
the epibiotic vacuum
as papiermace cadavers
are crucified
 
with ectoplasmic glare
these immaculate clones
envenomate
 
a primeval token
that unlocks
the umbratic incubus
 
 
38°
 
 
This tronic
cascade
is an elastic
 
vein
with gaudy
proles
 
who are
anticrustacean
totoculars
 
as wargimps
encrypted
by diades
 
in a blinklink
of the zeuxisdead
 
troll this trompe
l’oeil
 
in its mortis
urinal
 
 
39°
 
 
The turret
culates
on a hive
 
of primus
symbols
 
the feces soil
the threnody
 
its flexive
cliches
 
clickeryclack
 
in stuckanality
and pops
the empyrean
 
a turnstile 
in sludgychoo
 
has its nosetrivia
in an anesthezine
glare
 
this blot
apercu
 
 
40°
 
 
Schwarze Hefte
the bait
 
for immanence
and facticity
 
is hydrogen
cyanide
 
in a schwitters
mural
 
the zyklonic
bricolage
 
in aborted loops 
of mappae
clavicula
 
and rubia
tintorum
 
this encratic
litany
 
is a nurohell
severed from
punctuata 
 
in a yellow
ataraxia
 
 
41°
 
 
Bice
or verditer
 
have the same
chemicals
 
as copper, carbonate,
hydroxide
 
the burnt calcium
in faience
ash
 
paracobolts
smatite
the feet
 
of pickers
haunt their hollow
 
and metableed
this pixel pagetter
 
(kreaturlichekirt)
 
a humanoiex
dips its pods
in malachite
 
then creases
its skullcap
with tricornblack
 
lips dyed
with insect blood
 
and a picaflor
teleology
 
 
—Irene Koronas

David Roden, T-Drones

Pyramidal neuron by Prof. M. Hausser

UCL is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

The Welcomes Collection

 

T-Drones

 

itran vlover-d rpturd 
overwean& refract/n speculative topoi d-¬ m-diatic
emarcation 4my ambit d-ramifies wild zephanianism
as the anti encephalism culz bullient glacid geobits open
epiphanicmomentz
anenomic IDGcarv ancient Tstrucs/n
nunc filters
 
d-ific consequence/n a 0-id-al
constant mincum/f glimmer drax
ships nebulous w/ father to steal back relic/f mimmaculate hurts
gold histensities forgotten outs/n dveinous evnt & knauseate begetter
‘that emaciat-d carrot /f a leg’
hz shalmost survivust
@ 0.h lossfunct = ‘so u us-d 2 do thz better?’or u just/a self-sim rout-d-
Robotant/larval or merl-d imagin-d skywd ?
q-mime-d-d
q-memen’s fingers drumm/n her chillirack
so she’ll quip negligently inLASP:
‘how could i come back withouf leaving?’
 
opmizeryawls xayward
luvial intelligence mention-d
hs
sunk
back2 ditches
lin-d w/d-d they recoil
amplify concats against quiet
we’re no explainers
& even our long run futurelooped
intel fire for [theorems gala afturd last]
thepersonal warn-d w/ unreadabl memetrace dif/d-fer without
virtual
prezenz captur-d tokamak/n smoki tropics
/n contraceptive telists stars
/n the bliss/f a billionz yrs
u never caught the comets tail /f ur d-thmoan
/nto agonoasis
 
autonormative excison
immanent implicate
ontoid transverve
proper easy feelz
0ghost/f no-colour
ethos on ur skin
we never touch-d
so little
beyond trite-consumptive copeprompt ind-x
d-cli/n-d self-presenc/n calcite scotomas
bodice vault-d amity
analmmunity fr imaginary sums
copulative nature = self speculas wrapp-d/n
she callsit trippy refin-d/n ‘sick’/n gauche/n unkind
even asa sum feint ‘i would eatu withall’
had she been knowing/n seeking
down 2or more holes
arborence ¬[ /f me/n if ¬, then]
who?
i persuad enough would be d-appear-d
there would still be dt stomas hz-d 2a minima
 
pigwof
anahymen gnaw-d
@ -dge fiel2d lac-d w/ silver wet answ2er dt question
quick sense d-tect suc numanvast fingers cirumlunR racinG veg
dewy airline d-nts/n brushes
 
day after dramatic
day2 feel N/A shaft bury/n gnaw again
damage asa clear intent
 
fulfilment d-lay slowmerger aft & int the eart
u capitulate sweet sap
 
i-felt-d well their thought or num but their hungers
contriv-d 2pass a dress strap vid over hard stinger 
wet grasssssmellt-d
 
sow for  mask
fresh4MEAT
rattling hz utile flens
absent nowl-d could appear so quiet
hZ pronouns tentativ-ly bloat
tan skinas dt more forward /f dt/pair stoodDIGITAL
concat-d /f tawny strong phallas strings
d-type thrown 2 wet knives between hz teeth/n unfastening hz teas tongue slug-d over
jaws
that serv-d us @ Offal Carribou
he couldn't help u lift ur for me
lup /n absentia feltur
 
ur ebbing new Eart d-vour-d u first
windflower vulval
holoblack chokehold
engulf ur errancy
irregular sear critic swank cold U/Acc experience
/n fleeting memory on land-d cumulus
 
when he comes u still consid-r/a tardy remence
u still curlzround dancing d-d
hz soft furs warm/n
knifegrav w/implodions as Wof shak ur strom
both open float w/ Paincreative Pig
ID wallow neath lunas
last relic /f fur 
gleamcoilz hand over urt
knife steaming w/
cok slice/r other
uq-call everything they will take/n hollow
 
island
overlap vult slush
verdanstanding Herd
2consequence frond isa part/f
¬/n animal
 
ORSENSat
u have been unwilling 2acknowl-dge
dt temple boundther ina scizor
w/ wirefract geocolumn interlay
 
ZZZKY /N
u can¬ erase awt
w/ incesst phrygians
playz evnt painravelz
uniwarranting every shad- /f sad
 
he want-d2 witness this/tetralogon  
az she writes hant for last father
lips
discreet
burnz around her
 
corpse d-sir-d incapacitat
as there isa nob /n ur terminal loop [exe]
but i prefer2 domesticate suicid-s
enjoy-d asa voyeur might
listprocesses /n sand
 
u conc-d- it imbues this
DR1 AdVENT
COmbinaTOR
I=overford[8 time immers-d]
post-life/z an isomorph/n melt
 
she cooks/n flash freez-
rocks chateaunoir
glows/n specs/nEve
unerblAU LAMPS convolve-dsmoothas hood
reoccupy d-ep
data/plane samplethrongs
Dt [¬ All]
plac some indrawz ineff-d
forget u can¬ dare¬
dantiahZir
voidburne/n
SO lovectrl ucult-d
D-flesh occulat-d
mimmaculate befor she clutch-d ur leg
 
i sample fearful no-blam
-d
water curls
round Ble
ferries disgorg w/ harbour burn
blue gloss-d/n parergonal
still u don’t turn2/widr d-fram
even though lgica is rive/n
i stammer wildly 
 
 
—David Roden

Stephen Bett, excerpts from SongBu®st

 

 SongBu®st (BlazeVOX, 2024), Stephen Bett
Cover image by Geoffrey Gatza

SongBu®st

 

Breaking into song, or breaking it apart? Maybe a bit of both. Simultaneously a celebration & a send up of iconic pop culture lyrics.

 

That Micropoetics Buddy

 

Stop the tape

it aint Peggy Sue

 

— cool at the loo

(ah hey, fountains R us)

 

Every day it’s a gettin’ vaster

’til some mutt says go ahead ’n ask her

 

A hey, a hey hey

that infrathin delay

 

Blast of gun shot,

bullet hole in target

 

Gorgeous cover, & ah’m stumped

 

PS: Love like this will suRly come their way

(a hey, the hay hay)[1]

difference, however miniscule, between two seemingly identical things—eg., looking at an object (hearing a sound, etc.) now, and then one second later; or Duchamp himself noting, the “infrathin separation between the detonation noise of a gun (very close) and the apparition of the bullet hole in the target.”

I couldn’t remember which Buddy Holly song kept the “hey hey” brain-worm in my head; thanks to Carol Reid for remembering, and thus releasing me.

Then there’s Duchamp’s urinal, titled Fountain & signed R. MUTT

And Patrick Stump (originally Stumph—rimes with Donald Drumpf, hey?) did a truly gorgeous cover of this Buddy Holly song, “Every Day.”

 

Hey, Third Rail Infrathining

 

Ooh hey, hey, hey

Sunshine on a kick’d back day

Light me up, grrl …

 

Talkin ’bout

your livewire jag

lyin’ on yer ol’ third rail

 

I.       guess.       you’d.       say.

What can make me feel that way?

Sounds like live ’Murican gunfire play 

 

But tell me more …!

glued    — like a stamp to a letter

(like birds of a feather)

says you been charged

poli-sci’d out, runaway Sue

 

Caint make you’m be untrue

 

Nuttin’ you could

say or do [2]

 

That Magic Sailor

 

I sailed an ocean, unsettled ocean

 

Magic, magic, magic, magic

 

Oracle —   more nautical

than prodigal

Polis has eyes on da field

 

“We are a coast people … no-

thing but ocean out beyond us”

Edge of dumb-struck space

 

Sail on, sail on sailor

Sunshine kick back day

 

This magic mo-ment …

so different & so new

(nuttin’ you could say or do)

 

…   Brought to us by our

favorite (third rail) multi

model relational database

management system

(oh please…    please me)

 

Support your local Global

Oracle Cloud Infrastructure

(New Regions coming soon!)

 

Sail on, oh magiK Oracle …

Whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh [3]

 

Infrathin Hall of Mirrors Effect (or, Calling Out the Joneses)

 

For what it’s worth      ’cause

something is happening here

& you don’t know what it is

do you, Mister Jones?

 

  …  Man with a gun over there

telling me I gots to beware

 

Wait …     it’s Mr Jones his Self! 

— that there “Me and Mrs Jones”

We got a THING going on

know it wrong   /   much too strong

let it go now (go now

go now, ooh …

 

(Feels so suicidal, jes’ like

Bobbie Zee’s clone cojones)

 

Tarnation …     schlepping wit’ them

damn Joneses       coupla dude-

bro infra-thin’ers

nuttin in ’em       the space

between front & back

sheet a’ paper

 

What I’m writing is an infra-novel

  … connects the dots   (sailor Jones

 

Everybody look what’s goin down

whole lotta shakin      rimes they

are a’changED   /   more’n enough

ordnance for y’all

 

Children, what’s that sound?

Workin on the chain     ya-hay-hain

or lolling themselves

to death (LOL) [4]

 

The Creeley / Spicer Outtakes

 

 

Instant Karma’s gonna get you

Gonna look you right in the face

nuttin’ you can do or say ’bout that one, ace

 

Well we all shine on

Like the moon and the stars and the sun

Give it up for sailor grrl, happiness sho’s a warm gun

— kickin’ ass on a sunshine day, sport! aint we got fun

 

            *                  *                  *

 

He come groovin’ up slowly, he got walrus gumboat

he say will dance, chow down— yo dis’ lumpen brute

 

He roller-coaster, he got early warnin’

nothing’s out beyond us, it jes’ riding the swells

an empty creel, taint no spice wuz forwarnin’

 

He say “one and one and one is three”

Got to be so jacked when you’re one-eye at sea

(one to one to one they’s too Unfollowed)

 

            *                  *                  *

 

Come together

Right now

Over me

 

Lordy, lordy …       Q ’n boogaloo

rearin’ up down south

we aint never gon’ free [5]

 

You put a spell on…  you

 

You put a spell on…  you

beCAUSE you’re ff-EYE-nn

caint stop the things that you do

no, we aint lyin’

 

It’s your recombinant flirtation

(odor & colour combo’d)

a singular touch of the marvelous

sewing brain farts together

on the bizarro spectrum

(your tried & true normal)

 

No, aint buyin’ your fortuitous

backdated gas up w/ sewing

machine & umbrella

 

Sunshine days you skipped

the light fandango, a

capella, & up the tarantella

(but after… salmonella)

 

Brainpan chem leaks chill ’n

drill down fried wire, sail on

lighter grades of third rail

 

Back on the coast we was

feeling kinda seasick,

walleyed circuits always

runnin’ round

 

Watched you triple down

on the ol’ narrative shtick

(hey hey hey)

 

So we shone a gloss

on your cabeza [6]

 

Cubed & Walleyed Leftover

 

Reprise & refrain

 

Sugar, ahh,

honey, honey

 

infra- infra-

thin sides of a sheet

 

Eye to Eye

Same face

 

Cross eye

frisson! [7]

 

Not in the Margins, But (snugly) in the Kerning

 

I’ll l’ight the fire

You place the flow’ers in the vase

(dude crude lewd…

chick bailiwick shtick)

La-la, la-la-la-la-la

 

Come to me now (come to me now)

And rest your head for just five minutes

Such a cozy room (such a cozy room)

 

Y’all CSN  Young cool coots

unkerned it’s N  Y corduroyed off the sill

cozy, cozy       insistent! (in Creel voice)

infra-aged, in that lil’ split second

 

Our mouse is a very, very, very fine mouse (very fine mouse)

With two cats [bats, rats] in the yard

Life used to be so h’ard

For you “a fluent” faux-freak (zed-head?)

… some kerning & tracking for sure

 

La-la-la-la, la-la-la-la-la

I (’n) sip it (lol-lol)

if U kern t’ do id

 

Catchy as catchy can

(aka, rasslin’ w/ Picabia)

coddled catch, all holds bar

two half-C’s on

 

Snug as a bug in smug

a mis-kerning? [8]

 

The Great Contender

 

The man who shot Liberty Valence

clearly didn’t care mucho much for Valencia

(nor likely cross-town rivals VillaRReal)

 

That derby hall a’ miRRors…    a’gin & redux

 

When Val rode to town the womenfolk would hide

(Rreal men & transfolk, they’d abide onside)

 

Give me hibbity jibbity or give me the point of a gun

the only law that [libs] understand —

lib·bard·y for not from dems wackos

 

Rrose Sélavy likely-wise cried snide

in zir Yellow Submarine

(it’s true, #LookItUp!)

 

Putt it right on the platter

The man who flipped a birdie on yr Lib Pal

— poor Burt Bacharach, dead

at 94 just this week —

He was the [gravest] man of all

he was the Great Contender

 

Just laughing and gay like a clown

in my town [9]

 

Inhabiting the Sound Gaps

 

I said see, C.C. Rider

Oh, see what you have done

 

You slipped ma’ disc, sailor grrl

Chopper Couture din’t stand a chance

 

Well now see, see see rider

… SEE what you have done

 

thIN diff:   dis ultra-tiny-tinny fit

you DISappeared, gap in the hall a’ …

holla!

 

I said see, see see rider (see, see rider)

see what you done done

 

Doubly (& parenthetically) minced

coma zone-out in my comma

 

Très infrathin of infra-thin & infra thin

the ol’ miRRor image RE-flect E-ffect overload

 

So whose fleet feet turns the page

tha’s extreme tenuity   (ThieRRy Davila)

 

published Dec 17, 2010, at 11:22 am

updated Dec 17, 2010, at 11:22 am

 

Same Diff times t’ree    — w/in da minute

one & one & two & two

 

Inhabit every in·ter·val (a hey hey)

C.—gap—C. at sea, oh see here sailor grrl

 

You are that dancin’ sound

 

Slippered outta dat vis·U·al hegemony

some différance, n’est pas?

 

The hear of her·e·sy

what you just Undone

 

Yas hear don’t see it

Surfer·Grrl [10]

 

Insta Surfing

 

Li·ddle surfer, li·ddle one

Made my heart come all Undone

 

(Sailor’s gurl, heart’s a twURL)

 

Teeny-tiny itsy dot fitter-upper

reeled in, bought you by Rreal men

(In my Woody them’s would take you…)

 

Diss ol’ Miss O’ Ginny RE·verse flipped

chic-o-layin’ cutie pie voice print

all over our gooey screens

 

Do you wuv me, do you wi’dul star-twick one?

(jes’ me & mah Woody)

 

’N don’ go DISappearing in the gap

there’s have all Rreal womyn gone

 

Whoa, oh, mercy mercy me

things aint what they used to be…

 

On stage now #FiveSeconds Get·It & Forget·It

please identi·size Rupi Kaur

for Po·it Laur·E·ate

(made 30 mil las’ year!)

 

Infra-Mincing our way to you,

dear insta·read’R …

Lie-la-lie

Lie-la-lie-lie-lie-lie-lie, lie-lie-lie-lie-lie

Lie-la-lie-lie-lie-lie-lie

Lie-la-lie

Lie-la-lie-lie-lie-lie-lie, lie-lie-lie-lie-lie [11]

Infra Lasting

 

If it’s infrathin it’s gotta be well short

of “infrasimilar”

 

As gurl to grrl…

 

Same diff, or not really?

 (an A’muricanISM)

 

Go teach your grandmother

to suck electric prunes (dear)

(masquerading in the fridge?)

 

This crew at sea —

[We’re] not ready to face the light

[We] had too much to dream

Last night

 

Think dream, sailor

If thinkin’ could be dreamin’

(more than a thin diff)

wch aint for real, that

boat sailed

 

Well, I told you once an’ I told you twice…

 

InfraTHIN’s “the very lastness of things

… [a] frail and final minimum before

reality disappears”

 

(Bang, homesteader)

 

This could be the last time…

Oh, no      Oh, no-o-o

 

So darlin’, save the last dance

… us mincing ones

 

It’ll put your duplicitous reel

on edge [12]

 

M lettered ready for USE

 

Last night

Thinkin bout las’ night…

 

It was reel it back in

 

It was She-e-e-e-e-e-ry, Sherry bay-yay-bEE

 

It was mincing up airy-fairy & fiery

— Oh no, oh no, you’re gonna b-u-u-rn! —

right down to the lastest glittery ember

 

It was rolling round the roses Rosie

mein frau dug infraRED out of sight

 

It was won’t you come out tonight

pyre higher & higher on a magiK

red-hot-wire carpet flier

 

It was Sher-err-erry airheads flambée

bloodstains track the hall of miЯRors

(It were nowhere Rreal womyn’d done gone)

 

It was Sailor Grrl cresting adrift

our on·lie the lone·lie muse, feisty

M lettered ready for USE [13]

 

Musing

 

Looking out on the mourning drain

I used to feel so Un·In·spired (oow-OOM!)

(Lord, it made me feel so wired)

 

… ’til Sailor Grrl rode in on the waves

(with Liberty Val & the lib·bard·ies

… thems PO’ets)

 

Born to it, like (notwithstanding

CAGAB)[14]

 

Nat·U·ral muse-worthy

fender bender syn·the·sizer

 

Wishin’ & hopin’ (& thinkin’ & prayin’)

gets you dis·harmonized

just a mate’s pre-tender

in tha’ Hall a’ MiRRors

 

The right grrl, on the left

(we got steely about Miss O’ Ginny)

she weren’t ah’mused

won’t “wear her hair just for him”

 

Steady rain water on the brain

all fluids a go-go

return to sender [15]

---

[1] Marjorie Perloff’s new book on micropoetics, Infrathin, gets after Duchamp’s notion of “infrathin”: there is a

[2] The Temptations, “My Girl”; Mary Wells, “My Guy”

[3] The Beach Boys, “Sail On Sailor”; The Drifters, “This Magic Moment”; Jack Spicer’s “coast people” quote, redux (again); Oracle Corp, Silicon Valley: yet another term & concept ripped out of Western Civ.

[4] Buffalo Springfield; Bob Dylan (x2); Billy Paul; Moody Blues; John Lennon; Jerry Lee Lewis; Sam Cooke; Calvin Tomkins, Duchamp: A Biography (p. 346), quoting Duchamp’s front & back sides of a single sheet of paper as another example of “infrathin”; Laurent Binet’s very fine novel HHhH (p. 241), a postmodern historical metafiction as an “infranovel” of infinitesimally fine distinctions over a singular historical event (the assassination of Heydrich, architect of the Final Solution & “Butcher of Prague”)

[5] John Lennon, “Instant Karma” & “Come Together” (& “Happiness…”); Creeley’s “One thing done”: “let / me sing, one to / one to one, and let / me follow” — such loveliness no longer seems possible, given the grotesque rise of white nationalism presently around us

[6] The Alan Price Set, “I Put a Spell on You”; Procol Harem, “A Whiter Shade of Pale”; Philip Lamantia, A Touch of the Marvelous; Comte de Lautréamont: “the fortuitous encounter upon a dissecting-table of a sewing-machine and an umbrella” —“one of the most famous images… to play a major role in surrealist thought and poetics” (S.C. Bett, Incidentally Philip Lamantia: A Study of the Poetics of Surrealism, p. 26)

[7] The Archies (again), “Sugar Sugar”

[8] Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, “Our House”; Marjorie Perloff’s advance praise for derek beaulieu’s VisPo work in his Surface Tension: db’s “poetry of difference, chance, and eruption? Marcel Duchamp would have called it the poetry of infrathin” (my emphasis); one of beaulieu’s poetics’ statements: “Write not just in the margins, but in the kerning”; Creeley’s “Some Place” (“had I, had / I, insistent”);  “Catch as Catch Can”: a late 19^th C wrestling phrase used as the title of a 1913 Francis Picabia painting

[9] Gene Pitney, “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence” & “The Great Pretender” (the latter also covered by The Platters, & both songs written by Burt Bacharach); properly speaking, Valencia & Villarreal Club Futbol are cross-region derby rivals (the latter’s motto: The Yellow Submarine”); & fondly recalling Grade 4 club Membership Card for “The-Look-It-Up-Club (motto: “We Don’t Just Guess, We Look It Up!”)

[10] Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels’ version of “See See Rider” (aka “C.C. Rider”); C.C., as in Chopper Couture (chopper apparel, huh?); several commentators on Marcel Duchamp’s infrathin or inframince concept, easily googled—among them: quoting Thierry Davila, curator of the Museum of Modern & Contemporary Art (Geneva); David Zerbib’s review of Davila’s book Infrathin: Bref histoire de l’imperceptible, de Marcel Duchamp…(published & updated within the minute, note); Paul Matisse (step-son of Duchamp, & grandson of Henry Matisse, collected & published Duchamp’s notes under the title Inframince: “inframince [is] the very lastness of things…[the] frail and final minimum before reality disappears”

[11] Beach Boys, “Surfer Girl”; Paul Simon, “The Boxer”; Marvin Gaye, “Mercy Mercy Me”; as good an estimation of these ‘identity excl’ Instagram poets as I can see (& time-honoured too): “‘stop deceiving the uneducated crowd / with empty sweetness’ (Metamorphoses 5.308-9) / aesthetically superficial / ethically dishonest” — Joe Safdie, Scholarship, p. 44

[12] The Electric Prunes, “I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)”; Rolling Stones, “The Last Time”; The Drifters, “Save the Last Dance for Me”; Re: “the very lastness”— see Paul Matisse footnote to “Inhabiting the Sound Gaps”; Re: “the real” as duplicitous—see Robin Blaser’s essay on Spicer, “The Practise of Outside”; David Dowker introduces us to his (?) term “infrasimilar” in his poem “The Information Paradox” (Dissonance Engine)

[13] The Traveling Wilburys, “Last Night”; Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons; Arthur Brown, “Burn”

[14] “Coercively Assigned Gender At Birth” (oow-OOM!)

[15] Aretha Franklin, “You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman”; Dusty Springfield, “Wishin’ and Hopin’”; for a very insightful take on Aretha F’s voice see Paul Headrick’s story “The Franklin Chair” in his collection The Doctrine of Affections