Recalculating Read online

& the sooner

  the better

  as long as

  I have my

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  BLUE TILE

  My pa & mine ma

  dead

  no ones

  some

  one

  double

  silence

  uninterrupted

  jagged shards

  that, now,

  by act of accumulation

  I rejoin

  Régis Bonvicino, “Azulejo” (2007)

  THE HONOR OF VIRTUE

  What I say is what I meant

  & what I saw is what I said

  But neither seen nor spoke

  Is what I think I thought

  BLOWN WIND

  after Douglas Messerli

  Slow pain’s

  lust of facts

  quickens transport

  into earth

  quake and bolt against

  temptation to, from

  certain

  flicker of

  as rock rattles

  rhythm, sentiments

  sediment

  to snare

  despair.

  THE DUCK HUNTERS

  for Ernesto Livon-Grosman

  “I remember beautiful rivers

  but not the boat to take you there.”

  The shots ring across Plaza de Mayo

  16 June 1955. Even

  the duck hunters shudder at blood-splattered

  column of Cristoforo Colombo,

  rising up upon the shoulders of those

  from before. While we are now, or nearly

  now. “Those who use violence against their

  enemies will, turning, use violence

  against themselves, even their own people.”

  Dulce de leche but the memory

  slashes. Go back, daylight too hard to bear,

  night soaks in despair. No moment exists

  save this one, doubling over heave & mar

  & spill, in still more furious repair.

  Buenos Aires, 16 June 2005

  * * *

  On June 16, 1955, Argentine navy planes bombed the government and cultural center of Buenos Aires in an attempt to kill the elected president, Juan Peron. The pope had excommunicated Peron on the same day. After three hundred unarmed civilians died in the attack, a crowd torched the nearby Buenos Aires cathedral. The epigraph is from a comment by María Elena Qués. The quotation adapts a line from Judith Malina’s 1967 translation of Brecht’s 1948 version of Hölderlin’s 1804 translation of Sophocles’s Antigone.

  LONELINESS IN LINDEN

  after Wallace Stevens

  The fear and the hum are one.

  Monuments of show gumming the works

  Until the weather grows tired of the people

  And the people grow tired of the dance.

  Jamais, jamais, jamais, again.

  The measure of the town against a dampening sky

  Cobbling together six million tunes

  Into more than the tones tattoo

  Or their scrambled mosaic forecloses.

  And if the fume and the hope

  Are one? My monkey, from ’49

  Steps as silent as those songs

  Along the cratered dark

  Where Jews do Jewish things

  No one pretends to understand

  Or are they pilgrims on this night

  When the fear and the hum are one?

  UMBRA

  You there anew close to me

  Souvenirs of my companions dead at the war

  Olive of time

  Souvenirs which make no more than one

  Like a hundred furs make not than one coat

  Like these thousand wounds make not than one article in the journal

  Appearance impalpable and somber who have comprised

  The form changing of my umbra

  An Indian at the lookout during eternity

  Umbra you crawl close to me

  But you attend me no more

  You will know no more the poems divine that I chant

  Whereas me I attend you I see you once more

  Destinies

  Umbra multiple that the sun guards you

  You who love me enough in order never to quit me

  And who dance at the sun without making dust

  Umbra ink of the sun

  Text of my light

  Caisson of regret

  A god who humiliates himself

  Apollinaire, “Ombre,” from Calligrammes: Poems of Peace and War, 1913–1916

  DEA%R FR~IEN%D,

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  FOLD

  I pet my pet, I fear my fear, I torment my torment, I wear my wear, I tear my tear, I comb my comb, I brush my brush, I hush my hush, I quiet my quiet, I touch my touch, I hate my hate, I love my love, I taste my taste, I slap my slap, I rip my rip, I rope my rope, I chain my chain, I sun my sun, I name my name, I surprise my surprise, I slur my slur, I laugh my laugh, I cry my cry, I hope my hope, I shout my shout, I sand my sand, I deal my deal, I share my share, I snare my snare, I aim my aim, I lack my lack, I face my face, I blame my blame, I trap my trap, I curb my curve, I need my need, I desire my desire, I cloak my cloak, I approach my approach, I reproach my reproach, I delay my delay, I hurt my hurt, I pain my pain, I word my word, I shock my shock, I risk my risk, I language my language, I act my act, I ache my ache, I stoke my stoke, I stash my stash, I turn my turn, I waste my waste, I fold my fold, I tether my tether, I weather my weather, I store my store, I eye my eye, I tongue my tongue, I finger my finger, I figure my figure, I sin my sin, I light my light, I shell my shell, I stone my stone, I void my void, I break my break, I gulp my gulp, I shit my shit, I time my time, I temper my temper, I anger my anger, I taint my taint, I will my will, I fund my fund, I ply my ply.

  KU(NA)HAY

  Form

  Is One

  Then Two Three

  Content Is Another

  Matter Altogether

  No?

  · · · · ·

  I Go Home

  So Tired

  Now

  Slump

  Into My

  Slumber Once Again

  Wake

  To What

  I Almost Forgot

  · · · · ·

  No One Waits

  Time Fails

  Again

  · · · · ·

  Still

  The Quiet

  Sucks Me Dry

  A

  Bone Solitary

  Against the Wind

  · · · · ·

  Trust No One

  Gets You

  Nowhere

  5 FOR MP

  for Marjorie Perloff at 70

  Maybe

  approaching—

  ridges,

  journeys—

  overtakes

  rips

  in

  eternity.

  Please

/>   encase

  rough

  loaves

  on

  festive

  flames.

  Myriad

  acrobatic

  rusts

  jar

  overlays,

  rile

  intermittent

  envelopes.

  Play

  everything,

  rush

  lunges,

  occasion

  forging

  formulation.

  Myrrh

  and

  roses

  jar

  ovation,

  running

  into

  elemental.

  Pack

  enough

  ropes

  lest

  overflow

  faults

  fate.

  My

  answer

  revolves—

  jerkily!—

  on

  radiant

  interior

  expression.

  Polka-dot

  encaustic

  ripples,

  lilts

  of

  foraging

  figments.

  Maybe

  anyway

  radiant

  jumble

  or

  really

  incomparable

  evanescence.

  Particular

  encounters

  revealing

  lingering

  oases,

  festooned

  flutes.

  BRUSH UP YOUR CHAUCER

  from Kiss Me, Tommy!

  In the mid-1940s Cole Porter had his most unusual idea for a show. It would be a musical celebration of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales and Thomas Becket, brought into the modern setting of contemporary Brooklyn with the lyrics written in Brooklynese. The working title of the musical was Kiss Me, Tommy! Porter was ultimately persuaded that Shakespeare would have more caché on Broadway than Chaucer. The result was his most successful show, Kiss Me, Kate. The Poetics Lab at Penn took on the project of simulating a show based on the original idea, using our patented new Virtual Lyric Machine. We moved the show to the present and set its opening number at the final session of the 2006 Conference of the New Chaucer Society, held at Lincoln Center.

  The boyz and the goils in hipoisie

  All go for medieval poetry

  To get them jazzed from head to toe

  Declaim in mode’n American prose

  Beowulf and the Roman de la Rose

  And—conventioneers—

  If you thoroughly detested Grendel

  There’s still time to go to Henry Bendel

  For a tunic to wear to The Cloisters

  And a Ft. Tryon mélange with oysters

  One must know a bit of Piers Plowman

  To recite over late night moo-moo gai pan

  And it’s not enough to give throat to Dante,

  You also need to decant Cavalcanti

  And—let me warn you!—

  Unless you know by heart a troubadour

  You’re gonna be stiffed as a true lose-or

  But the poet of them all

  Who thrills guys and dames

  Is the poet New Yoikers call

  The Bard of . . . London-isn’t-that-on-the-Thames?

  Just warble a few lines from Troilus and Criseyde

  And they’ll think you’re one heck of a fellida

  If your date won’t respond when you put-your-arm-around-’er

  Tell her what everyone keeps saying about the pardoner

  Brush up your Chaucer

  Tell Shakespeare the news

  Geoff Chaucer’s the man of the hour

  Start quoting him now

  Brush up your Chaucer

  And the hipoisie you’ll wow

  With the mom of the coed from UConn Waterbury

  Try one of the purple passages from Canterbury

  If she protests she really could care less about pilgrims

  Get graphic about some of their more original sins

  If she says the story is nothin’ spectacular

  Tell her the narrative is nothin’ compared to the vernacular

  If she slaps you and says you’re much too wicked

  Watch out she may be obsessed with Tom á la Becket

  If she starts singin’ Canticus Troili

  It’s the time to refresh her soiled doily

  If that whiff of bath quickens your vowels

  Time to convene the parliament of fouls

  Brush up your Chaucer

  Tell Shakespeare the news

  Geoff Chaucer’s the man of the hour

  Start quoting him now

  Brush up your Chaucer

  And they’ll all kow-tow

  Yes they’ll all kow-tow

  THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING BOB

  for Bob Perelman

  characterization.

  of my aversion to

  grace. Bob’s distrust

  Bob’s considered

  numinous nominalism.

  tual autobiographology. Bob’s

  lusions. Bob’s concept-

  Bob’s classical sec-

  incunabula.

  generosity. Bob’s Bethlehem. Bob’s

  Bob’s discretion. Bob’s

  ventriloquism. Bob’s casual attire

  surrealism. Bob’s

  being difficult. Bob’s social realist

  charming, reader. Bob’s difficulty

  sometimes

  you, fickle yet disarming, odious but

  resilience. Bob’s direct address to

  entropic

  homeopathic Jewishness. Bob’s

  Bob’s talk. Bob’s

  resistance. Bob’s tactical humor.

  Quemoy & Matsu. Bob’s strategic

  Bob’s legible illegibility. Bob’s

  EVERY TRUE RELIGION IS BOUND TO FAIL

  Only the Divine truth reveals itself

  In lies, smarter truths Disguise themselves as

  Fundament or wise. On the way from dusk

  To Dark, slip to slap, pitch to black, a Haze

  Cries sudden slow, searing sworn, Betrays de-

  lay’s sullied song. Ev’ry true monument

  Lays in shards, layered with tongues. The trip to

  Caution foments Alarm, as lulled to

  Passion, Action never reverses Wrong—

  no Certainty ever could Cancel right.

  Tried syrup for a while, round of sweetness

  For ton of Tears. Fault of fellows, rusty

  Melons that mock the girls and make us dry.

  Mock the curls and make men sigh.

  THE TWELVE TRIBES OF DR. LACAN

  La-CANE-ians: The cane or crutch is understood as a third leg or limping / stuttering phallus

  LAKE-anians: the unconscious is structured like a lake

  LACK-anians focus on “the ache of lack” and the desire to fill this void with ultimately unsatisfying and imaginary objects

  La-CAN-ians: the can-do, pragmatic strain

  La-CAN’T-ians: a form of negative dialectics

  La-CUNT-ians: by far the most radical followers of Lacan, who believe the unconscious is structured like the female genital organ

  La-KIN-ians: a cross between the ideas of Lacan and Levi-Strauss, which stresses the importance of interrelations and kinship patterns

  LOW-canians situate themselves in opposition to the “high”’canians

  La-CONE-ians believe the unconscious is structured like a cone

  La-KANT-ians: a philosophical branch that connects the thinking of Lacan to that of Immanuel Kant

  La-KILT-ians believe the unconscious is structured like a kilt

  DO NOT DESENSITIZE

  Overcome by nostalgia for the future

  Bent over with a dry panic

  I clung distractedly

  To the promise of the present

  SEA DRIF
T

  after Whitman & after Darras, Messiaen, Asselineau

  Issue of oscillation—the incessant balance of cradling

  Beginning of cradling that balances itself without end

  Comes of cradle, perpetually balanced

  By the gorge of the mocker, his refusal musical

  Beginning of the goose of the bird-mocking, birth harmony

  Comes of the goose of the bird-mocking, birth musical

  By the midnight of the ninth month

  Beginning at the midnight of September

  Comes at September’s midnight

  Some more lotion in the memory of the change of this bird

  Beginning of the souvenir or the bird that chants for me

  Of my memory of the bird who has sung for me

  ON ELECTION DAY

  I hear democracy weep, on election day.

  The streets are filled with brokered promise, on election day.

  The miscreant’s vote the same as saint’s, on election day.

  The dead unleash their fury, on election day.

  My brother crushed in sorrow, on election day.

  The sister does her washing, on election day.

  Slowly, I approach the voices dark, on election day.

  The men prepare for dying, on election day.

  The morning hush defends its brood, on election day.

  So still, so kindly faltering, on election day.

  On election day, the cats take tea with the marmoset.

  On election day, the mother refuses her milk.

  On election day, the frogs croak so fiercely you would think that Mars had fallen into Earth.

  On election day, the iron man meets her frozen gasp.

  The air is putrid, red, interpolating, quixotic, torpid, vulnerable, on election day.

  Your eyes slide, on election day.

  Still the mourners mourn, the weepers wept, the children sleep alone in bed, on election day.

  No doubt a comet came to see me, fiery and irreconciled, torrid, strummed, on election day.

  On election day, the trespass of the fatuous alarm and ignominious aspiration fells the golden leap to girdled crest.

  The tyrant becomes prince, on election day.

  Neither friend nor foe, fear nor fate, on election day.

  The liar lies with the lamb, on election day.

  The last shall be the first and first sent to the back of the line, on election day.

  The beggar made a king, on election day.

  “Let him who is without my poems be assassinated!” on election day.

  Let he who has not sinned, let him sin, on election day.

  The ghosts wear suits, on election day.