Ray Johnson "Double or Nothing"/Double ou Zero" with Thanks, for the Sticker Dude

Detail - Sea of dolls

THE BOOK REPORT

1. The Strangely Obvious

Find somewhere quiet and private where you are unlikely.
Try to pick the place where you can be damaged,
disturbed, transported. How many times should you read the book?
This is a personal choice.

Let’s assume for the moment that you’ve chosen
a work of fiction. Be careful here.
Do not fall into the boring trap
of reporting every single thing that happens.

Find somewhere pleasurable and irretrievably specific.
Keep the book beside you. Be aware.
Long word. Short breath. Your personal response.
An important question to ask yourself—do you love

the reader of your report?
In pencil, let your bustle arise…


2. the fine print

the possibility of hidden love
letters, dirty prints, page numbers
jotted in the margins (a),
then rubbed off. tiny pink debris
of discarded characters. insatiable friction
in a frisson-esque stack, flirting
w/ me until I have to do it.

i stole a candy-striped text
from the church library.
i slid it under my little girl dress (b).
easter egg cover and bloody inside.
sensationalistic technicolor vibe
of martyrs so hot they boiled alive.
lead cauldrons, plucked-out eyes, optic nerve squiggles
in silver vessels like smashed red tadpoles.
flailing limbs fettered to mean, frothy steeds.
petit fours. pieces of a naked lady &
the gawkers, the voyeurs. the close readers of
the fine print inside eviscerated innards (c).

i rooted around for books
in a stranger’s dank basement,
brimful of forbidden loot. morsel by morsel,
illicit little thrills ignited
behind my eyes, inside my panties.
i ripped off book jackets;
devoured. long words. short breaths. hot sentence
like specially designed teeth to the lobe (d).
a mouthful of blister pearls
burned my tongue into a mutation;
into words like morphological fondue (e).

you know you want to slither into
this cave filled with stars (f).


3. the footnotes

(a) sniff the marginalia

(b) insert your finger between the lines and tap the
caesura

(c) swallow throbbing vowels
vertebrae like syllables
vowels like jewels
syllables like octopi
(tentacular & inky)

(d) lick my voice like it’s a strip
of button candy with a sinister twist;
kiss my wrists when they hiss
like an overheated oven

(e) to sizzlingly decorate every paper cut
you dip into me

(f) i’ll even let you draw & quarter my poetry

La parade (4)

J'étais assis au «dog bar» un café du coin de la rue. Caché derrière ses lunettes d'aviateur, me renvoyant ma propre image, Jim me dit : Tu remarqueras que le mot eye peut se lire dans les deux sens. J'acquiesçai, lentement, comme dans un film défilant au ralenti. Dehors la nuit tombait ou plutôt la lumière déclinait. On était en début d'après midi, le jour était en train de mourir et j'étais le seul à m'en rendre compte. La serveuse s'approcha et me demanda si je voulais encore du café. Je répondis non. Pourtant, elle fit mine de verser et, le contenu de ma tasse remonta vers le bec de sa cafetière pour s'agglomérer au liquide noir collé au fond du récipient. La serveuse s'éloigna en souriant, ses lèvres remuèrent de manière saccadée et vibrante comme soumises à un champ électrique puissant. Une voix hurlante de haut dignitaire nazi sortait d'un viel appareil radio : « Tous les adolescents sont des fascistes en puissance ! Ils éprouvent le besoin de se soumettre au culte de la personnalité. Les rock stars, les stars du rap, les stars du cinéma ont été inventés par le système pour canaliser cet élan fasciste. Le prochain dictateur européen aura l'allure et l'attitude d'une rockstar !» Derrière le double vitrage, la foule rugissait au passage de la parade, au loin, des collines mouvantes, sinueuses et écailleuses, cachaient le soleil tandis que j'explorais mon propre drame (tu te souviens quand papa disait : je suis incapable de viser le coeur) et que les soeurs défilaient nues, la chair remuant sous leurs gestes désarticulés et obscènes de possédées. De l'autre côté de la rue, près d'une ruelle encombrée d'ordures, un chien rongeait un os étonnamment long et, trônant sur une poubelle, un crâne contemplait le vide, avec sérénité, de ses orbites creuses. Au milieu de son front blanc comme de la craie, un trou circulaire pouvait laisser supposer de sa mort. La foule stagnait dans l'artère principale, près des maisons alignées, copies conformes d'un modèle unique élaboré, conçu, modélisé, loin, dans un bureau situé quelque part au 47e étage d'un building renfermant des centaines d'autres bureaux où sont conçus des milliers d'autres projets de modèles qui seront également copiés, définissant les contours de notre confort, réduisant les méandres des circonvolutions de l'esprit humain et le labyrinthe complexe et infini de l'univers à une série de lignes droites et de courbes rassurantes. Un poivrot se leva, tituba entre les banquettes et le zinc. Un commis voyageur, aux épaisses lunettes d'écaille noire se moucha bruyamment, sa valise attendant sagement près de ses souliers comme un animal de compagnie bien dressé. Un enfant fit tomber sa glace sur le lino gris. Un homme coupa son steak saignant d'un geste chirurgical. Une vieille dame permanentée engouffra le dernier quart de sa tarte au citron. Un camionneur but la dernière gorgée de son café. Une serveuse frotta la table après le départ du voyageur. Le carillon sonna. La porte claqua. Je... Je crois que l'univers s'effondre. Ha ? Et ça te fait quoi ? Jim mâchait bruyamment son chewing-gum comme un enfant effronté ou comme une caricature ratée de prostituée. Et comme pour accentuer cette vulgarité, il ajouta : « je crois que cette fille veut décoller sur ma rampe de lancement ». Il regardait la fille qui frottait avec ardeur, penchée sur la table, le revêtement de plastique usé dans un mouvement pornographique. Totalement absorbé par sa tâche, elle libérait, inconsciente, la teneur explicitement sexuelle et masturbatoire de ses gestes, ses seins vibrants, pressés sous sa blouse rose pale. Dehors la parade continuait sa marche aux sons d'une musique grotesque, aux accords dissonants. Sur des chars, des vieillardes édentées se faisaient prendre par des babouins, jouissant sous les vivats de la foule. Des hommes se paluchaient ostensiblement, arrosant les visages des vieilles lubriques d'une offrande translucide et joyeuse. « Nous sommes victime d'une panne d'électricité de l'histoire ». Une gamine blonde tournait autour d'un réverbère, la main collée au métal froid, indifférente au spectacle de la rue. Un moine à la robe de bure usée, à la tonsure bien rasée, jouait du saxophone, son étui ouvert à ses pieds. Il jouait un air de Chet Becker, Tangerine il me semble. Un homme rassemblait mollement les feuilles mortes de l'automne de son râteau rouillé. Elles s'amoncelaient en un tas dans le coin d'une cours aux vieux pavés. Une nouvelle voix à la radio : «il n'y a pas d'histoire, seulement un amoncellement chaotiques de faits et d'actes. Mais, comme l'esprit humain à besoin d'ordre, alors nous construisons l'Histoire dont le sens tend à répondre de manière rassurante à la question : Pourquoi ?». Jim mâchonnait toujours son chewing-gum de manière nonchalante : «J'ai déjà vu des milliers de feuilles mortes dans une station de métro, tu crois que c'est possible ?». La radio éructait d'une voix suave : «Il a été retrouvé mort dans sa villa de Miami où il s'était enfermé depuis quatorze ans. Il travaillait sur un projet urbain consistant à faire vivre trente millions de personnes dans des mega-buildings. Né pendant la grande panne qui toucha près de 50 millions de personnes, il travaillait également sur un projet d'appartements chacun alimentés par sa propre micro-centrale à fusion.» Dans le reflet miroitant de la vitre, les visages des consommateurs devenaient grimaçants comme des masques mortuaires monstrueux, les reflets de ce qu'ils étaient : des morts attendant leur transfert (je suis les deux moitiés d'une même personne).

Jim Happened, Once

control is organized into bits of jim. this jim falters like any other. this jim goes like a trip over to a sodden green field where so much happens in springtime. now the field turns grey. the grey redeems by closing in. bits of jim spread to transform: honk honk, that aint happening.

but wait mood, wait for time. and the piecing cry of lately, steams windows freely and then you gone. stare at the jim till not so fierce or free.

makes a burning study, says our jim.

a jim is rectangular.

a jim for once, with all the ploys attended.

then further jims, as motion towards resolution (like we all) yet tossed about stutter.

control is the jim byword, which stays insane.

sane isn't such a big drop either, of course.

a poem beginning till its end

I remind that I lifted. I struck out those cold points, that were process. I said I in a cold day morning and the white of breath showed something thru dark. no words were in that smoke. daylight hadn't dawned on me or anyone. I tried to think, and was little. I thought earlier this same. the poem was there all along. then I took a point of time, in which my father. then it wasn't him. then I said I would try. then I forgot the work. then I looked back. then I was writing that I hadn't done. but I had. have you cared that way? simple questions crowd us. I specialize. I was strong as betting or even, cloud goes away. when language is as great as we think, we believe poetry. when language is small, your family is smaller. when I did all I could, I saw I could do more. when I read that sentence, I see many things varying. did I need a family when I was weak? do I need one when I am strong? a father or mother, either way, the weight and waiting. something was staved, and something caught on, and something, I wrote. you may find this too, in the way of your road. the end.

eyedentity/oeildentite

detail of today's shopping list

20020226

______________________________





                       mocheté matinale
                    de visages exposés
 à la lumière crue d'un tramway



______________________________

Sarcotheem Luurmanents (material jettison

Sarcotheem Luurmanents (material jettison

jettison m-placement (trajictory

semantaparticle sememetaporticle

cul for cur

curliculicalc

calcucurliculi

calculuurmanents

dense meat of mappings

palimping sayest

MURGOR (fivet
MURURGOOR (ifivet

drown drawn
drawn drown

fluffbog
string pollution

agent wearing an island of lint
barely able to move

gigantic felt amoeba knight

Catapults for Divers

PULL!
[chase with spotlight into the dark over the deep black waters
and gone]

PULL!
[projecting glyphs mapping upon the naked skin now blurred
over the formless deep black waters and gone]

PULL
[a thousand lasers dancing across the living contours of body
torquing in the flattened black infinite flat eternity
and gone]

Sarcotheem Luurmanents (material jettison

jettison m-placement (trajictory

semantaparticle sememetaporticle

cul for cur

curliculicalc

calcucurliculi

calculuurmanents

dense meat of mappings

palimping sayest:

of body torquing
deep black island of (ifivet drown drawn drawn now blurred over lint
barely able sayest MURGOR (fivet MURURGOOR sememetaporticle cul for cur
curliculicalc calcucurliculi calculuurmanents dense meat felt amoeba
waters and naked skin meat of infinite flat spotlight into wearing an
eternity and gone] Sarcotheem m-placement (trajictory semantaparticle
the dark glyphs mapping of mappings palimping drown fluffbog string
pollution agent for cur curliculicalc calcucurliculi calculuurmanents
dense Divers PULL! [chase with lasers dancing upon the Sarcotheem
Luurmanents flattened black in the mappings palimping sayest gone] PULL
[a thousand (trajictory semantaparticle sememetaporticle cul across the
knight Catapults for to move gigantic over the deep black jettison
jettison m-placement the formless Luurmanents (material waters and gone]
PULL! [projecting of body torquing (material jettison jettison living
contours to move gigantic
for cur sememetaporticle cul body torquing upon the living contours
flattened black lasers dancing deep black (trajictory semantaparticle
sememetaporticle cul the formless of mappings palimping and naked to
move gigantic Divers PULL! [chase with mappings palimping waters and
lasers dancing infinite flat for cur curliculicalc calcucurliculi
calculuurmanents dense cul across deep black curliculicalc
calcucurliculi Sarcotheem Luurmanents over the waters and now blurred
over skin meat palimping drown contours jettison living glyphs mapping
Catapults for black jettison gone] PULL! (ifivet drown drawn drawn
amoeba waters waters and gone] PULL! [projecting in the now blurred and
gone] the knight (material jettison wearing an Sarcotheem Luurmanents
fluffbog string cur of body gone] PULL [a thousand barely able island of
an eternity (material jettison jettison flat spotlight of body torquing
[chase with into wearing eternity and gone] Sarcotheem spotlight into
pollution agent jettison jettison m-placement curliculicalc
calcucurliculi sememetaporticle cul for (trajictory semantaparticle
(fivet MURURGOOR deep black over lint Luurmanents (material drawn drawn
Divers PULL! lint barely able sayest gone] m-placement (trajictory
semantaparticle glyphs mapping the formless the dark upon the knight
Catapults for drown fluffbog string pollution agent jettison m-placement
[projecting of thousand (trajictory for cur Luurmanents (material the
deep calculuurmanents dense Sarcotheem m-placement sayest MURGOR island
of naked skin the dark of infinite meat of calculuurmanents dense
semantaparticle sememetaporticle across the meat felt mappings palimping
sayest torquing flattened black to move gigantic over felt amoeba of
mappings in the sayest MURGOR (fivet MURURGOOR PULL [a curliculicalc
calcucurliculi calculuurmanents dense meat (ifivet drown drawn now
of (ifivet the dark blurred and Divers PULL! living contours mappings
palimping drawn drawn of infinite of mappings palimping deep black
calculuurmanents dense across the and naked infinite flat (material
waters jettison jettison for cur island of drown of body semantaparticle
sememetaporticle sememetaporticle cul black island drown fluffbog PULL!

Simple Geometry

The cooper Miller found a bird’s foot twisted into a Christmassy shepherd. There was a ribbon bowed in the talon and a something green and ferrous in the beak, which he educed from the bird’s foot, simple geometry and years of warping barrels, but had yet to find. He put it in his pocket and ambled away, his greatcoat soiled with otter oil and Moyle fat.

Ray Johnson regards you/Ray Johnson vous regard

Merry Christmas!

A collaboration with C. Behmenburg

I added something to a postcard by C. Behmenburg

"I do not seek, I find"/"Je ne le cherche pas, je le trouve"--Pablo Picasso

Bay Poetics as Perhaps

Massachusetts Bay sounds sad, so blue and big, such as a hill passing the highway. Bay Poetics is a title goosed from some other ether, trial balloon-sized and after all, we can't all own the sun. the sun ran behind the blue hill, discussed in terms of praxis and the federated year. will next year turn callow as we wind the highway up and let it smooth its association with all blue hills? this is a question for the end of 2006, when Bay Poetics tries hard for us. is there a bearable way we can listen to all poems, or only those from the side of the hill and the blue ocean filling the bay with traces? answers cannot control the event. Bay Poetics stuck to its principle of pages, and were read aloud or alone. Stephanie was in charge and that settled only one thing, correct dawn after night out. then Bay Poetics was austere because even Oakland crowds tears. and the bay of Massachusetts rose over the hill, the baying of people who read poems probed the forested hillside as if lost children were to be found. how do bays accept the ocean? how do hills accept the sky? Bay Poetics tosses some convivial flower into the warm ocean and daylights of that coast. winter is in Massachusetts, tho bought cheap. icebergs falling anywhere are full of frozen cheer. poetry dumps a load on you know who. thus this story allows itself. you may serve your Bay Poetics now.

note: Bay Poetics is a nifty contemporary anthology; this poem is a riff of its own occasion, really.

'an irraptios'

arf 3-way [the noisy signal dream of N signal to noise ratios] 'an irraptios'
http://www.phaneronoemikon.org/images/arf3x.jpg [1.8Mg]

né|cessity

_________________________________




'every author creates from a true necessity' Tristan Tzara said this in the 1918 Dada manifesto__ almost 100 years ago gone.





_________________________________


'si l'auteur ne ressent pas une certaine nécessité à faire un livre, bien il vaut mieux qu'il ne le fasse pas! il faut qu'il ressente une néssecité.' Deleuze a dit dans L'Abécédaire en 1988, soit 70 ans après 1918.



_________________________________



'if the author doesn't feel a certain necessity to do a book, well he better not write it at all! he needs to feel it is necessary, a necessity.' Deleuze said this in 1988 in the ABC, which was 70 years after 1918, which was 18 years ago from this year.




_________________________________

Tearer/dechireur ("terreur") Homage au collagiste Ray Johnson

s_l_i_p_s

cycle heaven of revealing

this cycle of heaven
this outrage
this cycle of heaven
this song

this cycle of heaven
this cycle of 
hear out of architecture
this cycle

arrested in time
this
sounded by a trumpet
everything fell to my feet

this cycle
out of the foundries, they march
this cycle of 
into the time of heaven

this was water was wet
out on the banks of the shore
accept in a linen sheath
this fog of becoming, coming

this cycle of angel
this cycle of possibility
this cycle of heaving
this cycle of revealing

12/11/06

Calliope Nerve VI: Word Slinger

"...out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry." --W.B. Yeats

Calliope Nerve Part VI: Word Slinger featuring Billy Jno Hope author of The Thirty Third Witness is available now and free of charge.

The Threat

by the nano
genetics disintegrate
past twenty-five sunsets
twilight stumbles
out of obscurity
into dawn's
most contemptuous disregard
of mortality

--Billy Jno Hope

Other authors include Raymond Farr, J.D. Nelson, James Dilworth and me, I'm Nobius Black.

Calliope Nerve features poetry, short lit, and odd bits in a wide range of styles. Back issues are available. To order this issue send your snail mail address to nobius at gmail dot com. Email for submission info. (We are always looking for talent.) Internet link trades, advertising, and print flyer trades available.

To support Calliope order you Amazon products via my web log: White Rabbit - *BLACK HOLE*.

Name your muse! Calliope Nerve.

Mother Wind

The wind is a woman with rain in her heart.
The arms of the wind are full of dead leaves.
I am coming, wind. Mother, I am coming
I am racing through the sighing grass.
I am running where the fringe of your shawl sweeps the earth.
The pine wood is howling on the height,
I will meet you at the edge of the cliff.
Will you teach me to fly? Will you teach me to dance?
Mother Wind, I am in your hand.

Stary

Stary

The lights shine down on me

Stary



Reflections

Who knew they were only

Reflections



Night

The darkness comes before

Night

they spoke.

they spoke of suffering and she of how it was the source of her poetry as if people who didn't write never felt any pain. the question seemed to him to be useless one was what one becomes that is to say one never becomes a poet but strives towards becoming a poem. the nuance is slightly important not that he really cared. she thought poetry was so much more personal and he thought the opposite, he was snobby and she was sincere. such an easy dichotomy but that is how things were. 'But can't you see i'm talking about me in these poems' and he 'but i try and speak of nobody but by reaching towards nobody the writing becomes everybody everyone.' she sulked and so did he. they never thought the same about such things. he hadn't said that she was wrong just that he didn't think suffering had anymore part in the writing than crossing the street. why put so much emphasis on certain things and not others? he knew not why. she hadn't said he was a cold heartless bastard for speaking of nobodies but she thought it and felt it even. when they had run out of patience with having to make up each time they disagreed they finaly split up. him and his nobodies didn't really want to but she did because her me was no longer happy with living with nobodies. she cried though he was never sure if she was sad to leave him or crying out of a feeling she had wasted her time with him. he cried for months because he missed her, which was just as selfish. now they get on so well. it is so much easier to disagree with someone you no longer sleep with. simplifies things. no more keeping back the love against an unshared view of things.

that's not the end of it however. things have been told a certain way but could just as well be inversed. the he might be she and she be he. and the emphasis shifted from certain things to others. it really depends on each case. no universals, only particular cases, particular ones. nothing really changes this way apart from maybe the clichés. but they are forever changing so nothing really changes on the surface. this may seem flat and all so matter of fact. and maybe it is but who ever said depth was needed. who ever said this last paragraph was needed. to those it offends just get rid of it don't read it. try reading something else or reading this in a different order. cut and paste sentences in random order and see what happens. just try things if you're not happy.

Light remains/La lumiere demeure pour Clifford Duffy

In roses

I speak in roses.

Each
imperfect

a whole
more beautiful
than its parts
may suggest

dark leaves
concealing

silent thorns
that snag and prick
a negligent grasp

fractal petals
wrapped round
a perfumed
mystery

tight at their
blood red heart

no one knows
the full meaning
of any rose

least of all
me

each surprises
growing its own
strange way
hothouse
garden
or essential wild.

Listen.

I speak in roses.

Can you
hear them

yet?

Vosper Lupine's Cap

Vosper Lupine wore a potter’s smock and a necktie with a scout’s cinch-knot, too-tight shoes and a yardman’s cap. He had a staff infection, red blotches and yellow-blue bruising and hip dysphasia, as he spoke through a trumpet hole in his pelvis, just below his navel and to the right of a benign mole. The day he lost his yardman’s cap was a Sunday, December 10th nineteen-43, a rainy, sleety day, a day even a yardman wouldn’t care to be out in. He remembered having the cap on his head when he left home at seven-30 that morning, but has no recollection of when or how he lost his cap. He took his usual breakfast at the nine-15 diner, a bowel of Rice Crispies, wheat toast, a glass of grapefruit juice and two cups of black coffee, no sugar. He remembers leaving the diner at exactly eight-23, his hat still on his head, and making it to work for 8-thirty, give or take a few seconds, as his leg was bothering him. Up to that point, and until he lost his cap, he has no recollection of either having his cap on his head, or not. He posted flyers to that effect and hoped for the best. He died at two-37am on a Wednesday, the third of January, not from a staff infection or a malignancy, but when the trumpet hole in his pelvis clogged up with spittle, cutting off blood-flow in the femoral vein.