A CRITIC WRITES POEMS

TWO POEMS by John Bloomberg-Rissman

In the House of the Hangman 959 & 960

Therefore I put it this way: when all the motes have crashed onto shores & people millions and hundreds of times, 53 or 533 or 5,333 typed pages each (imagine the SPACES!) ALL PERCENTS EXCEEDING THE HUNDREDTH SHALL MERGE W/O WASTE every equation has to be suffered in experience, yes, & from my time in study & time in libraries I took these precious words from the great Sun-Journeyist, fine! perfect! great! This is EXCRUSIATING tomorrow the stars will go out darkness will prowl the parks & atriums with more & more statues added to Every-place the plazas & malls & seafloors until the Rocks themselves [will doglike behave] ok! fine! 8 hours a night & yes all was fine & perfect & great & as Ali put it the void is grounded in the free, which is fine as far as it goes, IF there is a void, which is DOUBTFUL, given all that quantum SHIT happening, which might leave you wondering what free means, but still, there’s a shopping cart shoved up against the bushes at the end of the walk by the apartment building. Do you remember the whiteness that surrounded every object? We joked and called it, “air milk.” The nimbus crackled, split, upset the arch of a sigh. I’m dumbfounded! How can my part hold up my whole when my earth cannot bear the load of my part? This morning I was on the floor for a half hour because of a nosebleed, which is what led the first Cro Magnon artist to bring a flame into a cave, so wonderfully bald it’s invigorating. You are the swordfish that will never shower, the quietness of a manhole cover cannot compare with the wild vapours of nylon I sense in your larynx. Numerous channelers have gotten in touch with entities from Pleiades, and they all receive more or less the same message, which ends: get ready to party with light. So, quickly, Mayan time worked in increments of 13. Elsa can’t tell the difference between the chocolate stains and the period stains on her sheets. Tumors in the sky, tumors in the river, I spent time in this city as a ghost — rather, as translucent and Martian nouvelle cuisine. Look I am King Of The Forest / Says The King Of The Forest, someone (something) has made the air in this room louder. “With the smell of jasmine my anger wanes.” We begin to feel the force of Simone Weil’s judgment: “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” We begin to just say “Whoa” to Postpasséist antipasti. The attack in Yemen — like all other US drone strikes outside warzones — was supposed to be clandestine. But I’m starting to think that the dark days are over, and we can finally embrace the Ugg for what it is: an intensely comfortable shoe that makes a lot of sense. I love E*TRADE, it's like being on a riverboat in Kansas City, Missouri. I’m jumbled, a little claustrophobic, it’s a low ceiling. It’s about Hollywood, but not TMZ. Would you like crispy or original recipe? Everyone’s shit stinks you know. You don’t necessarily smell your own until that day on the freeway. I love your eyes, but only with ketchup. Your cylidrical [no, not cylindrical] reasoning implores me to generalize within the realms of a starfish’s lifetime hallucinations of gelatin pools and of actuaries floating upon the Rhine.

[Note: Sources: 959. Therefore I put … (imagine the SPACES!) and ALL PERCENTS … W/O WASTE and every equation … experience, yes and & from my time … fine! perfect! great! and This is EXCRUSIATING and tomorrow the stars … Rocks themselves and ok! fine! and 8 hours a night and & yes … & great: Brent Cunningham, Division 1, Sections 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, in Journey to the Sun; [will doglike behave]: JBR; & as Ali … in the free: Keston Sutherland, Stress Position; which is fine … free means: JBR; but still … apartment building: JBR, ekphrasis practiced on Sam Bloomberg-Rissman, “Abandoned dreams”, at http://instagr.am/p/KwOKX_pV_A/ Instragram (Happy birthday, Sam!). 960. Do you remember … arch of a sigh: Brian Lucas, The Head in Spring, at http://beardofbees.com/pubs/The_Head_in_Spring.pdf Beard of Bees; I’m dumbfounded! … load of my part?: Mansur Al-Hallaj, “from The Diwân (83)” (tr. Pierre Joris); This morning … nosebleed and which is what … into a cave and so wonderfully … invigorating: John Olson, “New Book Arrivals”, at http://tillalala.blogspot.com/2012/05/new-book-arrivals.html Tillalala Chronicles, 18 May 012; You are the swordfish … shower and the quietness … your larynx and I love your eyes … ketchup and Your cylidrical … upon the Rhine: http://www.madsci.org/cgi-bin/cgiwrap/~lynn/jardin/SCG The Surrealist Compliment Generator; Numerous channelers … party with light and So, quickly, Mayan … increments of 13: Liz Armstrong, “The Cobra Eclipse”, at http://www.vice.com/read/the-cobra-eclipse Vice, 18 May 012; Elsa can’t tell … on her sheets: Angela Veronica Wong, “Elsa Can’t Tell The Difference Between”, at http://www.pen.org/blog/?p=12145 PEN, 18 May 012; Tumors … river and I spent time … ghost — rather and translucent and Martian and nouvelle cuisine: Anis Shivani, “Garcia Lorca in Houston”, at http://www.puertodelsol.org/assets/pdfs/47.1%20PDFs/Shivani%20-%20Garcia%20Lorca.pdf Puerto del Sol; Look I am King … Forest: Jack Spicer, “15 False Propositions About God” (#14), as quoted in Julia Cohen, “Right Leg Press”, at http://onthemessiersideofneat.blogspot.com/2012/05/right-leg-press.html $650 Apartment for $650, 18 May 012; someone … room louder: Arda Collins, “Snow on the Apples”, at http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300148886 Yale University Press; “With the smell … anger wanes”: Geoff Tuck, “Protected: ‘… almost hit by a car while legally crossing the street, with the small of jasmine my anger wanes.’ Carrie McIlwain’s Los Angeles, and yours”, at Notes on Looking, 18 May 012 (password protected; only saw title in my RSS feed); We begin to feel … form of generosity”: Michael Sacasas, “Circle of Presence”, at http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/circle-of-presence/ The New Inquiry, 18 May 012; We begin … “Whoa” to: JBR, but remember Jim Turner’s / Randee of the Redwoods’ presidential campaign of 1988; Postpasséist antipasti: Keston Sutherland, Hot White Andy; The attack … clandestine: Ralph, “‘Covert’ U.S. Drone Operation in Yemen Mapped Out on Twitter”, at http://www.disinfo.com/2012/05/covert-u-s-drone-operation-in-yemen-mapped-out-on-twitter/ Disinformation, 18 May 012; But I’m starting … lot of sense: Jesse Wright, “UGGS ARE COOL, EVERYONE IS STUPID”, at http://www.vice.com/read/uggs-are-cool Vice, 18 May 012; I love E*TRADE … Kansas City, Missouri: John Sakkis, “just bought my 4 shares of the Facebook IPO”, at http://bothbothseries.blogspot.com/2012/05/just-bought-my-4-shares-of-facebook-ipo.html Both Both, 18 May 012; I’m jumbled … low ceiling and It’s about Hollywood … TMZ and Would you … original recipe? and Everyone’s shit … on the freeway: Aaron Wrinkle, “Portrait of an American Family, or This American Life: Aaron Wrinkle on Paul and Damon McCarthy’s Rebel Dabble Babble”, at http://notesonlooking.com/?p=14616&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=portrait-of-an-american-family-or-this-american-life-aaron-wrinkle-on-paul-and-damon-mccarthys-rebel-dabble-babble Notes on Looking, 18 May 012]

18 May 2012  

 In the House of the Hangman 961

And I feel as tho I must pay back life for the sins I commit against it aboard those goddam submarines. This line is that act. THE WORK IS CALLED HOLE IN SPACE and uh … and um ………… what they did is uh ………… I do have one or two notes …………………… uhm …………………… they, um, via satellite, uh …………………… so, ok …………………… plate glass windows, in, um, Lincoln Center, in New York, and in Los Angeles, California, and the Broadway uh, uh, um the Broadway sho–, uh, store, in, um, the Century City mall, and they did this, uh, three nights in a row, um, for two hours each night. And then: a shadow that can't be seen. I’d forgotten this was about to happen when, at noon yesterday, I found myself on a career trajectory with three men dressed in black dresses down to the ground, their faces painted black and a red and silver trim to their makeshift veils. The three men were suddenly there, in front of me, and they caught me. I caught them. Since I was a little girl, I have always been a magnet for Kali worshippers. I don’t know who the men were. What the black and red meant. They may have been Shiva mendicants. Not walking straight. Tantrics. Dancing, in fact, from person to person, until they caught the person “who does not look away.” What are you doing? Catching airplanes. Catching airplanes. Catching airplanes. Around the page 290 mark of A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze and Guattari distinguish between “assemblage haecceities (a body considered only as a longitude and a latitude)” such as a mountain, a marble, or a marmot, and “interassemblage haecceities, which also mark the potentialities of becoming” such as the individuality of a day, a season, a year, a life, a climate, a wind, a fog, a swarm, a pack, etc. In other words, different kinds of thingness. Consider syncope the ecstatic liminal experience of an interassemblage haecceity manifesting. But isn’t such laborious commitment a pointless fuss in this age of ready pleasures? “No! I insist on this – that solving the existential problems of love is life’s great joy,” he says and then looks across the coffee table at his translator, Isabelle Vodoz, with a big, half-ironic grin. “There is a kind of serenity in love which is almost a paradise,” he adds, popping a biscuit in his mouth and giggling. She giggles, too. Below this sixth-floor apartment, an RER train screeches along the rails out of Denfert-Rochereau station. But children circle the garbage piles / And subject to cycles the world is volatile / The cycle of violence is a manner of speaking / Speaking is part of the energy circulating / The cycle of violence is a classical painting / Gender is a doll discovered by children / Although the weak bond continues to create surface tension / The doll is a hydrocarbon with a bikini wax / The peaceable kingdom is a scene by Casper David Friedrich. In W-world people communicate rather than converse. The communication tends to be aggressive. Ah, a pastoral poem. But later, “pings confirm paths”, and perhaps the green field is a spectroscope or a radar. Either way the poem is bothered with the pressure-drops of movement, skittering and frittering, “drumheads being damped”. The specialist concluded that the boulder’s elf inhabitants were content with the move. “But they asked whether the boulder could stand on grass. I said that was no problem but asked why they wanted grass. ‘It’s because they want to have sheep,’ Ragnhildur replied,” Árni continued. The specialist also said that the elves wish for the boulder’s “window side” to face the view. Oh look at that isn’t that lovely you know I didn’t think there were hummingbirds in this part of OH MY GOD ITS A FUCKING SPY ROBOT GET DOWN kill it kill it kill it in the where of what the centaur cannot fold. “Flesh-animal moves backwards from the window. The floor passes slowly under its shoes. Its dance-massacre has reached a conclusion. Flesh-animal’s boom box, … flesh animal’s false prophet. The music has no longer its flesh of quickening flower – flesh animal collapses to its knees as the Manta Ray oddity soars slowly toward the apartment window.”

[Note: Sources: And I feel … goddam submarines: Wilfred Brathwaite, “How I never learned to stop worrying and love the bomb, or, in the belly of the whale: some prose on PTSD, with poems selected from the deep sea journals of STS3(SS) Wilfred ‘Willy’ Brathwaite”, in eccolinguistics 2.0; This line is that act and THE WORK … two hours each night: Suzanne Stein, “Fugitive State”, ‘Hole in Space”, in tout va bien; And then … can't be seen and I’d forgotten … veils and The three men … look away”: Bhanu Kapil, “Electrobion (2)”, at http://jackkerouacispunjabi.blogspot.com/2012/05/electrobion-2.html Was Gertrude Stein a Punjabi?, 19 May 012; What are you doing … Catching airplanes: Filip Marinovich, “Beogradjanka”, in Zero Readership: An Epic; Around the page … haecceity manifesting: Christopher Higgs, “Five Works of Theory You Should Consider Reading”, at http://htmlgiant.com/i-like-__-a-lot/five-works-of-theory-you-should-consider-reading/ HTMLGIANT, 19 May 012 (on Catherine Clément, Syncope); But isn’t such laborious … Denfert-Rochereau station: Stuart Jeffries, “Alain Badiou: a life in writing”, at http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2012/may/18/alain-badiou-life-in-writing Guardian, 18 May 012; But children … classical painting and Gender is a doll …by children and Although the weak … surface tension and The doll … bikini wax and The peaceable … Casper David Friedrich: Evelyn Reilly, “Broken Water”, at http://www.asu.edu/pipercwcenter/how2journal/vol_3_no_2/ecopoetics/reilly.html How2 v. 3 no. 2; In W-world … aggressive and Ah, a pastoral … “drumheads being damped”: Michael Peverett, and John Wilkinson, as quoted in Peverett’s “John Wilkinson, Lake Shore Drive”, at http://www.intercapillaryspace.org/2007/07/john-wilkinson-lake-shore-drive.html Intercapillary Space, Jul 07; The specialist … with the move and “But they asked …  Árni continued and The specialist … face the view: ESA, “Icelandic MP Moves Elves’ Boulder to His Home”, at http://www.icelandreview.com/icelandreview/daily_news/?cat_id=29314&ew_0_a_id=390052 Icelandic Review, 15 May 012; Oh look at that … kill it: “Terrifying Robot Update”, at http://thenewinquiry.com/av/terrifying-robot-update-2/ The New Inquiry, 16 May 012; in the where of what and the centaur cannot fold: Mark Ducharme, as quoted in Mark Wallace, “Brief Review: Answer, by Mark Ducharme”, at http://wallacethinksagain.blogspot.com/2012/05/brief-review-answer-by-mark-ducharme.html Thinking Again, 16 May 012; “Flesh-animal … apartment window”: Paul Cunningham, Foamghast, as quoted in Johannes Göransson, “‘Tonårs Jesus’: Blurry X-Ray Bodies of Paul Cunningham, Francis Bacon, Pablo Gonzalez Trejo”, at http://www.montevidayo.com/?p=2825 Montevidayo, 16 May 012]             

19 May 2012

*****

John Bloomberg-Rissman is somewhere towards middle of In the House of the Hangman, the third section of his maybe life project called Zeitgeist Spam (picture Hannah Hoch painting over the Sistine Chapel) The first two volumes have been published: No Sounds of My Own Making, and Flux, Clot & Froth. In addition to his Zeitgeist Spam project, he has edited or co-edited two anthologies, 1000 Views of 'Girl Singing' and The Chained Hay(na)ku Project, and is at work on a third, which he is editing with Jerome Rothenberg. He is also deep into two important collaborations, one with Richard Lopez, one with Anne Gorrick. By important he means "important to him". Anyone else want to collaborate? He blogs at Zeitgeist Spam.