the
cuckoo is a pretty bird,
she warbles as she flies
The cuckoo is a
- BANG -
--Sean
Bonney, The Commonsshe warbles as she flies
The cuckoo is a
- BANG -
The earth is
currently operating in a no-analog state. In the center of the grid is a glass
water pitcher. The pink lightning was branched — I think I mean forked. Instead
of these, I was given an insect, a peculiar prehistoric creature, part lobster,
part spider, part bell-ringer, part son of a fallen star, something like an
armored dog. But of course a
name
means nothing to a place
place-names
are necessary relations
a
name recovered returns the claims of human affection
for a place
place-names
identify a field of biotic relationships
place-names
are allied to habitat restoration
listen
to a place-name, hear the dead speak
some
place-names follow speech but run counter to
meaning
names
change when the guard of speech alters
some
place-names are all that remain of lost languages
our
place-names un-name older names
most
people live in places, a few dwell in names
the
meaning of a name may go into oblivion long
before the name itself
perhaps in the way
Dipesh Chakrabarty once said the colonized are placed in a perpetual “waiting
room of history.” To wait for what? — For it to get worse? It already is worse.
For it to get better? The cuckoo is a pretty bird. I wear a flowery dress to
prison and let them shave my head off ... I press my hands to the window and
hang my head. I know that somewhere in the darkened city there is a silent
place where a tiny, frightened animal is scratching at the dust and earth, and
it won’t stop until it uncovers some kind of burning rock that will illuminate
the entire structure. ‘Fuck. / / Am I smiling [anyway], I think / so?’ Because
parts, after all, are always unequal to the whale. I am easily distracted and I
like to put clothes on dogs. And nothing moved nothing was moving. Nothing
moved. Nothing was moving it was moving but at first it wasn’t going anywhere.
That’s right. That room is locked. Is it the same room or a completely
different one? We had an
wed bought it from had assured us it would
last us a lifetime and it
was getting older
and lumpy or lumpy in some places and hollowed out
in others and i just assumed it was part of a normal
process of aging
it was getting older we were getting older and
wed get used to it but
eleanor has a bad back and she was getting
desperate to get rid of
this mattress that had lived with us for such a long
time and so
totally
that i thought i knew all its high points and low points its
eminences and
pitfalls and i was sure that at night my body
worked its way carefully around the lumps dodging the precipices
and moving to
solider ground whenever it could
but maybe eleanor
sleeps more
heavily than i do i have a feeling
that i spent much of
my life at night avoiding the pitfalls of this
mattress that i was used
to and it was a skill id acquired over the
ten or fifteen years of this
mattress’ life so I felt there was no reason to get rid
of this mattress
that had been
promised to us by a salesman who said it would last the
rest of our lives i figured we were going to live long lives
i didnt
think we were
anywhere close to dying so neither was the mattress
but eleanor kept waking up with backaches
still i figured it was a good
mattress and that elly just didnt have
enough skill at avoiding the lumps it never occurred to me that the
mattress was at
fault so i didnt do anything and elly didnt do
anything because shes not into consumer
products and hates to go
shopping
but by the end of a year elly convinced me because she
has a sensitive back and i dont that she had a more accurate
understanding of this business than i
did so I said sure eleanor
lets get a new mattress were rebuilding the house
Every bird perched
on an electric line is a reason to keep on going one more day. And every bird
that swoops off, flies around in a mad circle, and swoops back down to land, is
a reason to love. At a particular moment in time, it seems that the birds are
everything. Through all of loss and being lost, there are the birds. The pigeon
looks at the ground, its heart at your feet. This is a panel on interspecies
communication. Goodbye. Hello. “A wrong life cannot be lived rightly.” And here
we are in the dark in general, like snow in von Trier. Do not chew or crush the
tablets. In emergency use bus lane. Amazing journeys start here. Restart your
heart. Restart your heart. Powered by RoadPilot. LIFE JACKET UNDER SEAT. Tell
us ten things, please. These blocks appear to have been arranged to imply
relations between the texts, and to distinguish the ‘voices’ of the various
contributors. This transcription seeks to preserve these features of the text
by maintaining proportionately the left margins as they appear in the
assemblage. To avoid ambiguities not present in the original xeroxed text,
where it is a straightforward matter to distinguish one contributor’s writings
from all the others by the appearance of their distinctive typography or
orthography, we have indicated which blocks appear to have been the work of the
same contributor by use of alphanumerical identifiers in the form: [A 1, 2...],
[B 1, 2...], etc. Under a blue fog —
PROGRAM MrsGorman
(Input, Output);
CONST
Indifferent = 60
VAR
Thursday, Indisposed, Called: BOOLEAN;
Bed, Chair, Hearth, Fire, Window, open: BOOLEAN;
Rand, Temperature: INTEGER;
BEGIN {Main Program}
IF Thursday THEN
IF NOT (Indisposed)
THEN Called:= True
ELSE {If Indisposed}
Called:=False;
IF NOT Called THEN Random;
IF Rand = 0 THEN (Bed)
ELSE {if Rand = 1then}
BEGIN {Else}
IF Temperature < Indifferent
THEN (Chair and Hearth AND Fire)
ELSE IF Temperature > Indifferent
THEN (Chair AND Window AND Open)
ELSE IF Temperature = Indifferent THEN
BEGIN {Else if}
Random
IF Rand = 0
THEN (Chair and Window AND NOT Open)
ELSE {if Rand = 1then}
(Chair AND Hearth AND NOT Fire)
END {Else if}
END {Else}
END {Main Program}
CONST
Indifferent = 60
VAR
Thursday, Indisposed, Called: BOOLEAN;
Bed, Chair, Hearth, Fire, Window, open: BOOLEAN;
Rand, Temperature: INTEGER;
BEGIN {Main Program}
IF Thursday THEN
IF NOT (Indisposed)
THEN Called:= True
ELSE {If Indisposed}
Called:=False;
IF NOT Called THEN Random;
IF Rand = 0 THEN (Bed)
ELSE {if Rand = 1then}
BEGIN {Else}
IF Temperature < Indifferent
THEN (Chair and Hearth AND Fire)
ELSE IF Temperature > Indifferent
THEN (Chair AND Window AND Open)
ELSE IF Temperature = Indifferent THEN
BEGIN {Else if}
Random
IF Rand = 0
THEN (Chair and Window AND NOT Open)
ELSE {if Rand = 1then}
(Chair AND Hearth AND NOT Fire)
END {Else if}
END {Else}
END {Main Program}
For the word is
not beneath the earth so that a man says Dig, nor is it in the heavens that a
man may tell you Leap. Meanwhile, tourists will stand far outside any clouds of
teargas that may appear. It is part of what defines them. They might want a
trace of the smell on their clothes, but still it is the avoidance of pain that
is the central fact of their collective dream. Nothing will cause them to
disperse. They hold maps. Here is the factory. Here is the museum. Here is the
hell of stars. And yet ... and yet ... your flesh is cared for dimly, lots of
it cost more per cherub to save up in vats — but that is the logic of risk
management in general. Prepare to grow that shit. This is a reminder. From the
larynx to the boulder, under groundhog’s grease, from the coagulation to the
yellow root in the closet by the fleece. For isn’t the foot one of the most
important places in the body? A planet of sand. Sand mountains, sand plains,
sand valleys. Sand weather. What if John Calvin had used CBD? “It’s a strange
day,” Alysia says, “A green bug in my room & now this mushroom growing in
your car.” The analysis, the most comprehensive to date, indicates that animal
populations plummeted by 58% between 1970 and 2012, with losses on track to
reach 67% by 2020. This mercy will replace to them near first exactly, as taken
from clear at new payment tacit doesn’t reduce the few. Natural as due not
meaning to; a cloud, after all is not nothing. The stench here is style. “We know
this warmth acts like the life shared by all earth’s plants because when it
increases in the spring, plants of all kinds sprout from the soil. They dress
themselves in their leafy finery and then in their blossoms and eventually in
fruit.” Nevertheless, not all ancient commentators assumed that coughing is
necessarily the opposite of soul or meaningfulness. A ninth-century Arabic
translation by Thābit ibn Qurra of the Aristotelian compendium known as Problemata
physica reflects on the fact that the cough is not universal in the animal
world, and indeed might almost be thought to be in some respects characteristic
of humans rather than animals: Why is it that some animals cough, while
others do not, for example a man coughs, but an ox does not? I wanted to
write a poem as good as that one, do you know it? Two graces condescended from
the Milky Way and landed in a Stockholm recording studio. They had to put their
fingers in it. They had to puncture glass to get at it. And if that glass is
the window of a Whole Foods, selah. If you don’t put your nose in it and make
it part of you it will only be the meh life not the good life, the Bat Opera,
the body mounds. So what you see in these rectangles are OH right OH right I
forgot THERE’s the HEADLESS HORESEMEN on a TEEVEE show that will decide if
you’re a “GOOD” or “BAD” artist or not ... but I DIGRESS, because honestly it
would be better to set up some offshore banking account in the Cayman Islands —
which incidentally would also surely be a FANTASTIC location for the STARS OF
CINEMAROC piece I’d actually really like to do if anyone reading this could
FUND that particular project of mine because I know a LOT OF WEALTHY ASS PEOPLE
walk though this space. But I digress again because
the birds
are real
they
bring out
what
is
real
when
the
washers
bring
her over
to
the table, i’ll
take
her head
and
you hold her
body,
keep your
hands
around
her
wings, try to
keep
her keel
up
from the
table
with your
fingers
— many
of
these guys
are
very thin.
^^^^
^^^^
^^^^
^^^^
ok hold
on to her lower
back there so she
can’t
kick herself
off
the table, good
job
here’s her leg,
let’s
keep going, can
you
please part the
wings
a little with
your
thumbs,
yes
I crashed there, you
know. In the field where an elf on a sleigh is painted
[author’s note. With
the Noose Around My Neck, the
next section of the multi-part work Zeitgeist Spam, is both a
continuation of In the House of the Hangman and a (more or
less) mirror, “algorithmically” speaking, of the previous section, Flux,
Clot & Froth. So I’m going to “unpack/sample” my library, and will at
the same time also sample whatever comes into my RSS feed, as well as any
downloads, emails, overheard conversations, the news, TV ... and whatever else
presents itself as appropriate. And mash it all up. As with all of ZS, Noose will
be composed in sections, which are designed to disappear into one seamless
work. It will last as long as Trump and the aftermath.]
[SOURCES: The
cuckoo ... BANG –: Sean Bonney, The
Commons; The earth ... no-analog
state: Amsterdam Declaration on Global Change, 13 July 2001, quoted in Ian
Angus, Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil
Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System; in the center ... pitcher: CA Conrad, “Spider Symbiosis: Time With
Freya”, at http://somaticpoetryexercises.blogspot.com/2016/10/spider-symbiosis-time-with-freya.html
So(ma)tic Poetry Rituals, 23 Oct 016; The
pink ... forked: Bhanu Kapil, “Notes for a novel not yet
written: BAN”; Instead ... dog: Brigit Pegeen Kelly (RIP), “ISKANDARIYA”, quoted in John Keene, “Poem:
Brigit Pegeen Kelly”, at http://jstheater.blogspot.com/2008/04/poem-brigit-pegeen-kelly.html
J’s Theater, 3 Apr 08; But of course:
JBR;a name means nothing ... before the
name itself: Alec Finlay, “A Poem of Namings, from Gaelic and Norn”, quoted
in Jerome Rothenberg, “Alec Finlay: A Poem of Namings, from Gaelic and Norn”,
at http://poemsandpoetics.blogspot.com/2016/10/alec-finlay-poem-of-namings-from-gaelic.html
Poems and Poetics, 24 Oct 016; perhaps in
the way Dipesh ... shave my head off ...: JBR, as remixed by Lynn Behrendt,
“I Haul I Haul I Touch Myself”, in A
Picture of Everyone I Love Passes Through Me; I press ... I think / so?’: Sean Bonney, “Letter in Turmoil 14 /
Note on the Hallucinations”, at http://abandonedbuildings.blogspot.com/2016/10/letter-in-turmoil-14-note-on.html
Abandoned Buildings, 13 Oct 016; Because
parts ... whale: Rod Smith, blurb for Brandon Brown, The Good Life, at http://biglucks.bigcartel.com/product/the-good-life-by-brandon-brown
Big Lucks; I am easily ... clothes on
dogs: Jenny Lawson, “Dorothy Barker is more graceful than any of us,
really”, at http://thebloggess.com/2016/10/23/dorothy-barker-is-more-graceful-than-any-of-us-really/
The Bloggess, 23 Oct 016; And nothing
moved ... different one?: Ken Edwards, a
book with no name; We had an old
mattress ... rebuilding the house: David Antin (RIP), “the theory and
practice of postmodernism—a manifesto”, at https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/theory-and-practice-postmodernism%E2%80%94-manifesto-excerpt
Poets.org; Every bird ... interspecies
communication: Janice Lee, “Interspecies Communication”, at http://entropymag.org/interspecies-communication/
Entropy, 25 Oct 016; Goodbye ... lived
rightly”: David Grundy, The Problem,
The Questions, The Poem, and Theodor Adorno, Minima Moralia (tr. EFN Jephcott), quoted in Lisa Jeschke, “Jisa
Jeschke on David Grundy’s Poetry”, in Sundial
[Compleat] 2016 (ed. Richard Owens); And
here we are ... von Trier; Ian Heames and Jonty Tiplady, “from Sonnets”, in Sundial [Compleat] 2016 (ed. Richard Owens); Do not chew ... ten things: nick-e melville, “Lyrical Commands”; please: JBR; These blocks ... [A 1, 2...], [B 1, 2...], etc: “Editorial Notes”,
in Certain Prose of the English
Intelligencer (eds. Neil Pattison, Reitha Pattison, Luke Roberts), Second
revised edition, 2014; under a blue fog:
Samantha Walton, Amaranth, Unstitched,
in Sundial [Compleat] 2016 (ed.
Richard Owens); PROGRAM MrsGorman ... END
{Main Program}: Samuel Beckett, Watt
(tr. Hugh Kenner), quoted in Reynard Seifert, “HyperNormalisation”, at http://htmlgiant.com/web-hype/hypernormalisation/
HTMLGIANT, 26 Oct 016; For the word ...
tell you Leap: David Brazil, “The Method”, in Sundial [Compleat] 2016 (ed. Richard Owens); Meanwhile, tourists ... hell of stars: Sean Bonney, “Letter in
Turmoil 16 / Further Notes on Teargas”, at http://abandonedbuildings.blogspot.com/2016/10/letter-in-turmoil-16-further-notes-on.html
Abandoned Buildings, 26 Oct 016; And yet
... and yet ...: Issa; your flesh is
cared ... management in general: Joe Luna, “Save Lots”, in Sundial [Compleat] 2016 (ed. Richard
Owens); Prepare to grow ... by the fleece:
Justin Katko, “With Only the Handle Visible”, in Sundial [Compleat] 2016 (ed. Richard Owens); For isn’t the foot ... in the body?: Linda Mary Montano, “The
Performance Of Montano’s Shoe Store: Linda Mary Montano 2000/2016”, at http://lindamarymontano.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-performance-of-montanos-shoe-store.html
Linda Mary Montano, 26 Oct 016; A planet
... sand weather: Don DeLillo, The
Names, quoted in dmf, “I can’t get the Empty Quarter out of my mind”, at https://syntheticzero.net/2016/10/26/i-cant-get-the-empty-quarter-out-of-my-mind/
-synthetic zero, 26 Oct 016; What if John
... CBD?: JBR; “It’s a strange ...
car”: Steve Abbott, “It’s A Strange Day Alysia Says A Green”, at http://home.jps.net/~nada/abbott2.htm
README; The analysis ... 67% by 2020: Damian Carrington, “World on track to
lose two-thirds of wild animals by 2020, major report warns”, at https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/oct/27/world-on-track-to-lose-two-thirds-of-wild-animals-by-2020-major-report-warns
The Guardian, 26 Oct 016 (I don’t
mean to mitigate this in any way, but somehow the headline writer and the
author have conflated animals and vertebrates); This mercy ... meaning to: JH Prynne, “Infusion”, quoted in John
Armstrong, “Clarifying Difficult Poetry: Infusing with JH Prynne. Again”, at http://www.arduity.com/poets/prynne/infusionagain.html
Arduity; a cloud ... not nothing:
Simon Jarvis, “Why Rhyme Pleases, quoted in John Armstrong, “Simon Jarvis’
Jerusalem Deleted and Long Difficulties”, at http://www.arduity.com/poets/jarvis/length.html
Arduity; The stench here is style:
nick-e-melville, Alert State is
Heightened: an imperative imprimatura; “We
know this warmth ... eventually in fruit”: Emanuel Swedenborg, Divine Love and Wisdom (tr. George F.
Dole); Nevertheless: JBR; not all ancient ... ox does not: Steven
Connor, Beyond Words: Sobs, Hums, Stutters
and other Vocalizations; I wanted to
... good life: Brandon Brown, “The Last Words of Gerard Manley Hopkins”,
“The Good Life”, in The Good Life; the Bat Opera: JBR, reference to a
series of paintings by Marvin Gaye Chetwynd; body mounds ... digress again because: AL Steiner, http://www.hellomynameissteiner.com/filter/WRITINGS/Agential-Realism-Total-Aleatory-Abstrations-Rad
“Total agential realism, rad aleatory abstractions: Art + Porn/On Robt.
Heinecken”, and http://www.hellomynameissteiner.com/filter/WRITINGS/Welcome-To-My-Rectangle-1
“Welcome to My Rectangle”, at Hello my name is A.L. Steiner, and “Portfolio by
A.L. Steiner”, at http://bombmagazine.org/article/26891026/portfolio
BOMB, 28 Oct 016; the birds ... thumbs,
yes: Laura Corsiglia, How to Handle a
Bird; I crashed ... sleigh is painted:
Tomaž Šalamun, “On the Tracks of Wild Game” (tr. Sonja Kravanja), in Currently & Emotion: Translations
(ed. Sophie Collins)]
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