John Martone: A Suite of Poems from Molecular Lament

please note. a list of postings after january 12, 2012 can be found here

Cecilia Vicuña quipu menstrual 2006




thread

bare

for Cecilia Vicuña

               Their books were loose bundles of string.

                                             -- Charles Mann

just

about
done

here

dressed in

rags

~

story

of

yr life

string

all

balled up

~

in

the end

telo

meres

&

spindle –
some

children’s

book

~

all those

cells

di

viding

there

you are


~

want

to ask

those

chromo
somes

               why

~

such a clever
molecule

making you

not so

~

-- all those

hy

drogen

bonds

& you’re

still
lonely?

~

there it

goes
again

that

codon

~

all those cells

dividing

& you never

feel a thing

~

get

ting
too

big

for
your

brit

ches
that

mo

le
cule

~

take

all
those

mo

le
cules

tie

your
shoe

~

still

lost in
that

tangle

of

inter

state

roads

last night’s

dream

a thread

~

some molecules

dream up pictures

that are nothing –

there you go

~

you pick

that knot
apart

& then

what? –
tie it

again?

study
its length

in sun

namely
nothing --

or just

the sun?
                                             -- johnmartone

                              summer 2012

 [note. Both John Martone and Cecilia Vicuña have appeared several times on Poems & Poetics.  With Martone my fullest accounting of his work & achievement as a poet was in the posting of his poem “geometry” on August 18, 2009.  I describe him there as “our greatest living miniaturist,” an appraisal that holds for me into the present time. The new book from which this comes, Molecular Lament, is ready for publication from Martone’s own imprint (samuddo / ocean), along with an on-line version on his scribd page, http://www.scribd.com/john-martone-2968. (J.R.)]

John Martone: geometry (poems)

geometry



circling
this lake
to left
counter
clockwise


~


log—
hollow

long time
now

down
to this

empty
skin


~


fallen trunk
my path’s one
straight stretch


~


beaver dam—
farther on
fire circle
!


~


wood
pecker
yes

way
up
beaver-

girdled
oak


~

burrow—
room for
5 words


~

beaver
blue heron
bald eagle

& you


~

beavers too—
chisel-tooth’d
pen


~

that
beaver
dam’s

human
look—


~

cdnt do better
than this beaver dam
yrself

~


but this
beaver dam’s
conical
symmetry—

this beaver dam’s
geometry


~

beaver dam—

ought to
bathe today!

~

adding 9 words
to this beaver dam

here’s a poem


-- john martone
november, 2009


NOTE. For some years now, John Martone has been an indomitable worker in the pursuit of poetry, whose autonomous publications, many of them under the chosen logo of tel-let have come out in simple handstitched versions and since 2005 in an ongoing on-line format. In his own accounting: “ [Tel-let] began in 1987 as an extension of correspondence among poets. Over 100 numbers have appeared, originally in a simple 8.5/11 side-stapled format. During this time, the range of formats has grown, but the impulse has remained to provide a meeting place for exiles. The current print form reaches upwards of 100 correspondents in the US, UK, Canada, Germany, Japan, Korea, and Slovenia. Poets represented include Bob Arnold ° Ed Baker ° Michael Basinski ° MJ Bender ° Cid Corman ° Simon Cutts ° Larry Eigner ° Theodore Enslin ° Clive Faust ° Robert Fitterman ° Bob Grumman ° Gary Hotham ° Stefan Hyner ° Karl Kempton ° Robert Lax ° David Levi Strauss ° John Levy ° Rupert Loydell ° Giovanni Malito ° Lissa McLaughlin ° David Miller ° Peter Money ° Barbara Moraff ° Frank Samperi ° George Quasha ° Jerome Rothenberg ° John Vieira ° Phyllis Walsh ° Scott Watson.”

In the present blogger format, a few of the poems presented above have had to do without occasional indentations, but it’s my hope that the fineness of the work comes through in spite of this. He remains throughout our greatest living miniaturist -- his art a scaled-down work of nearly epic dimensions. (J.R.)

John Martone: from "children’s book" 2014

[To describe John Martone as our greatest living miniaturist, as I have in the past, is to go back for me to a time many years ago when Ian Hamilton Finlay & I corresponded about a poetry of small increments (one-word poems & other such concerns).  For Finlay, I believe, some form of minimalism was at the heart of the concrete poetry he was then exploring & developing, & for myself it entered into aspects of ethnopoetics & appeared most clearly in the numerically based poems (gematria) that I was beginning to write.  It’s with someone like John Martone, however, that this approach turns into a life long project, a minimal work like Finlay's of epic proportions, for which the following can serve as a yet another instance & perhaps (as “children’s book”) a new direction for his ongoing practice.  (J.R.)] 

my morning

a mouse nest

 

mouse-hole

holding

a mind
 

 

 

2 joints of yr

little finger

house mouse
 

 

house mouse —

my thalamus?

amygdala? 
 

 

house mouse

it’s always a children’s book 
 

 

two mice dead of fear in yr live trap
 

 

weak-eyed

feel our way along the wall

mouse & me 

~ 

little worms

in the brightness

eye’s floaters
 

 

 

out of touch

lie down

in snow 

 

suddenly feeling the river below the ice 
 

 

frost-shattered

stone's
a puzzle

knocking the snow
from your boots
no one's home

 

~

in layers

of winter clothes look up

at night geese

 

 

first time

for some

night geese

 

 

night geese

interrupt

a children’s book 

 

night geese

the horizon

passes overhead 

 

night geese

someone slips

on black ice

 

night geese

the old

keep up

 

John Martone, Two New Poems: “Gamma” & “Juniperus virginiana”

[To describe John Martone as our greatest living miniaturist, as I have in the past, is to go back for me to a time many years ago when Ian Hamilton Finlay & I corresponded about a poetry of small increments (one-word poems & other such concerns) as a project to be undertaken.  For Finlay, I believe, some form of minimalism was at the heart of the concrete poetry he was then exploring & developing, & for myself it entered into aspects of ethnopoetics & appeared most clearly in the numerically based poems (gematria) that I was beginning to write.  It’s with someone like John Martone, however, that this approach turns into a life long project, for which poems like the following, newly made & often self published, can serve as a presentday, irrefutable witness. (J.R.)]

                  gamma
 

         light in your handwriting’s loops

            light in your body 

~ 

the retina’s a sail 

~ 

infrared 

even as you lie there sleeping 

~ 

a frequency  

at which the body is see-thru 

~ 

they hammer together

a wooden stairs

you read about photons 

~ 

shouting vulgarities 

a roofer stands in the light 

~ 

it’s weeding or roofing these days & both 

~ 

photons 

the pea flower’s

whiteness 

~ 

photons  

you pick

pea pods 

~ 

the wind’s direction today all those photons 

~ 

in a photon

in the light

            more light 

~ 

wouldn’t mind

just being

photons 

~

gamma rays  

right thru

mirror 

~ 

gamma ray burst lighting up all can’t see it  

~ 

your body

this room  

this room

full of light 

           ~ 

radish plants

shot to seed overnight

you climb the roof 
 

 

 

              Juniperus virginiana
 

 

nothing to do

old man

red cedar 

~ 

room enough

for me in you

red cedar 

~ 

a brief nap

a red

cedar 

~ 

people have two lungs — red cedar 

~ 

nights

that interstellar form

red cedar 

~ 

another

sleep walker

red cedar 

~ 

come autumn

a cedar chest

full of bedding 

~ 

having no one

the smell of a cedar hope chest 

~ 

cedar tree

the soul is always something else

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    summer, summer 2013

John Martone: Presence of All Colors

................................................for Jerome Rothenberg

my black wristwatch
my black pocketknife
my black chanting-box
my black rosary
my black flashlight
my black winter gloves
my black watch-cap
my black camera
my black typewriter
my black tyre-sandals
my black lamp wick
my black picture frame
my black tu’ pháp
my black shortwave
my black cassock
my black window
my black tooth
my closed eyes

• • •

failing to observe
failing to keep chaste


failing to go hungry
failing to keep sober


failing to turn home
failing to depart for the forest


failing silence
failing to utter

• • •

presence of all colors


indifferent to inside
indifferent to outside


equal to infinite
equally subzero


null & null
null & null


dream ending there
dream precipitating there


when wakening
when wakening

• • •

Lying in bed & seeing orange
Lying in bed & seeing blue
Lying in bed & seeing turquoise
Lying in bed & seeing green
Lying in bed & seeing pine
Lying in bed no longer asleep

• • •

Never speaking tiéng Viêt
Never speaking Hokkien
Never speaking Dzao
Never speaking Ede
Never speaking Bahnar
Never speaking Jarai
Never speaking Hmong
Never speaking Muong
Never speaking Nhang
Never speaking Nung
Never Speaking Sedang
Never speaking Tai
Never speaking Tay
Never speaking one

[This is the second set of poems by John Martone to appear in Poems and Poetics. On publishing the first set, “geometry,” I wrote: “[Martone] remains throughout our greatest living miniaturist -- his art a scaled-down work of nearly epic dimensions,” an appraisal I think that continues to be the case today. (J.R.)]

John Martone: Magicicada spp.

Even if little boys in play
shd use a piece of grass or wood or a brush
or perhaps a fingernail
to draw an image of the Buddha
such persons as these
bit by bit will pile up merit
and will become fully endowed with a mind of great compassion;
they all have attained the Buddha way.
The buddha’s relics will circulate widely
 --The Lotus Sutra

HD 10180, a yellow dwarf star like our own Sun, had five planets detected by the HARPS (High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher) programme at the European Southern Observatory. … Two further planets were discovered in the system towards the end of 2010, making it the most-populated planetary system to date.
 --BBC 0ct 1, 2008

it’s another
planet now
cicadas

*

cicada shell’s my amulet cerebrum

 *

must be
same gene

tells you

get
out of

yrself
cicada

*

 yr shell — my shell —
cicada
kayak

*

cicada shell
kayak too this
bottomless lake

*

little
boat

on that
sea

lucky
drowning!

*

every bit of you comes out cicada

*

lonely mobs
13-year
cicadas

*

in my undershirt
examining
cicada molts

*

13 year
cicada — what gets
reborn?

*

cicada molt my skin color

*

cicadas
termites

how much longer
being human 

*

cicada — millions
never knowing
one another

*

cicada millions
an ocean
full of whales

*

bumbling down
this road one more
cicada

*

cicadas die
legs drawn up
so human

*

mulberries of course there’s a stain

*

cicadas & mulberries equal in number

*

ci
cada
wings

maple
keys—

& still
this

air
remains

*

cicadas
falling

out of
sky

all those
people

*

imago
instar
nymph
which are you?

*

sky’s
one
big

eye
glass
lens

*

o cicada
you’ve no
eyelids

*

knowing
what youre
about —
catastrophe

*

rusting — ruins
surrounding
the pea plants

*

                        peas really climbing now — youre out of sticks        

*

bare wood shack
cabbages
taking shape

*

get out
of yr head
sketching cabbages

*

old clothespins
all those lives
outdoors

*

electrical box --
there's yr opening
wrens

*

thunder
he pulls up
his socks

*

tar paper roof
trellises
filling up

*

all
youwant

to be
one

dragon
fly
wing

*

little kitchen
you get all
the light

*

elbows
on a wood table
solo

*
                                                                 wood table old friend
a bread-
&-
butter

solo
life

*

bare kitchen counters
& the radio
off

*

raining
it’s a glass
bowl

*

ten-year-
old
bamboo

knows
the trick’s

to root
in
water
*
                                           another raccoon you scrub a pear

*
dish
towels

fold
ed

*

under-sink
cabinet
won’t stay shut

*

you wash
yr spoon

& brush
yr teeth

*

come spring
the mice forsake
this little kitchen

*

in
the right
light
you
dis
appear

--june 2011

[This is the third set of poems by John Martone to appear in Poems and Poetics. On publishing the first set, “geometry,” & again for the second set, "presence of all colors," I wrote: “[Martone] remains throughout our greatest living miniaturist -- his art a scaled-down work of nearly epic dimensions,” an appraisal I think that continues to be the case today.  (For a fuller accounting see the "geometry" posting, August 18, 2010.)]