Wednesday, October 31, 2007

After "Warders" by SF , "Articulation of Shadows" by JD and Bob Dylan QUINTAN revamped version 2 by Amanda Deutch

I edited my original response (see October 30 post of same name) and wanted to share it.

QUINTAN 1 (ague or fever)

with her fog amphetamines wind no body
to guess crackle ruby in arms of memories how many
must we cross until we
can take off hour clothes undress the aches and
not be
just be
afraid
at blind blood oranges lit corners stung skeletons and her. she tastes just like glass lovers crimson hours jumbled discomfort and homicidal eyes reminder of that just so way. here you breathe.
wake to hear you breath. You once were breathe. subtle science of stop or keep on. skip on skeleton
I throat to recollect your honey illuminate serpents so ill asleep almost homicidal
even if green eyes. finally
she sees just like a woman queen of spades
shovels
like all floating worlds, she is just
fruit lines and greening maps

NEW: Sophia Lethe Talks Doxodox Down by RS Oventile

Sophia Lethe Talks Doxodox Down

D: From emptiness, to emptiness.
SL: Oh, Daddy-O, please.
D: What, “What the thunder said”?
SL: No, not nothing.
D: “Amor vincit omnia”?
SL: Idealize.
D: Or not.
SL: An exit dilemma.
D: Heart’s “rag and bone shop”?
SL: Yes (finally … ).

By Robert Savino Oventile

after 'preprogrammed' by george vance


e lonely c

by Rufo Q

hand
picked
satsumas

unripe:
nèfle
ecorché

soft 10
(enjoying
usufruit)

After "Articulation of Shadows" by JD, "Warders" by SF and naturally more stolen Dylan

NOT SO FAKE
by Amanda Deutch

every so often a serpent suddenly throats upon me and I want
to be nearer to the substance of you walking
bodies disassembled and together
unpartitioned

After "Warders" by SF, "After-Warder" by JD , "Articulation of Shadow" by JD with a little Bob Dylan thrown in for good measure


QUINTAN (ague or fever)
by Amanda Deutch

with her fog amphetamines wind nobody has to guess cracked ruby in
arms of her memories how many memories must we cross until
we can take off hour clothes undress the aches and be not afraid to
look at blind blood oranges, lit corners, stung skeletons and her
she tastes just like glass lovers crimson hours jumbled discomfort
and homicidal eyes reminder of that way... just so. wake to hear you
breath. You once were waking for me to hear you breathe. subtle
science of stop or keep on. I throat to recollect your honey illuminate
serpents so ill asleep almost homicidal even green eyes. finally she
sees just like a woman queen of spades like all floating worlds,
she is--fruit lines and greening maps

After "Stainless Sunset with Interesting Water Loop" by Michelle Noteboom # 2

DECONSTRUCTION
for DL
by Amanda Deutch

eating buildings dismantling cities she is
carrying mouthfuls of bromides boneliest
swallows shadows and regurgitates bricks
(you can’t tell what’s going up and what’s coming down)
try clipping through dim urban spaces and
speaking try tongues
touching images
(No one’s touching anymore anyway)
live elements or lime skins
why it makes you dismantle the self you might
have been once
in the slag heap and guts

New: Mutterbutterjinglemash

by Talan Memmott & Sandy Florian (based on Gertrude Stein's Advertisements)

click here: Mutterbutterjinglemash

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

After "While You Were Out an Old Man/Woman Came and Replaced You (After "Stainless Sunset with Interesting Water Loop" by M. Noteboom") by A. Deutch

Imagine Laid with Ceremony
by Brandon Shimoda


In the morning

                                           move
buildings
echelon as clouds
do buildings echelon as clouds do

bonelets form       in morning
buildings
move white dust

as hands as hands
all feathers wake as
clouds confectionary burns

bonelets form              scab green mouths

the clouds of the chorus
embraces white photos in the wide window


shake another face
speaks the clouds of the chorus
embraces white photos on the wide walls


shake the noh mask
haggles over confectionary        was

it you
were out an old man in a noh mask
breaks the thick glass shakes        was

it you
were a woman came and replaced the
flowers with a conversation
lapsed in artifact


pink, little thief
bonelets coming through the photos coming
through the windows

the walls shake
each flower
swallows the building it sounds like
one or more than
three                photos

in succession
hand over mouth hand over
mouth hand over mouth

the choral inflammation
echelons as clouds do
you imagine laid with ceremony

the particles still
or float her

After "Stainless Sunset with Interesting Water Loop" by Michelle Noteboom,


While You Were Out Another Man/ Woman Came to Replace You
by Amanda Deutch


This is not unusual
write you
a virus

in the morning
move
buildings

wake
clouds
right

knee burns
broiling green scab
infected

years of
infection
desired

embraced
photograph
myth of windows

another face
speaks
of cores

walls
mask days
witness matter

stains
break open
fundamentally

reveal
diseases
flash flash

explode
detonate
cleanse

and thicken
flowers quite
open

more than high
thievery
yes

little thief lady
steal gushing
species

bonelets (human)
coming through
cities

remark
handle or deal
awkwardly

odorous dignity
by
melting

one
more than
three

inflammation
body on
ground

skin shed
relatives of
permanance

imagine
laid with
ceremony
to stiffen

or
float
her

After ‘After-Warder’ & 'Articulation of Shadow' by Jennifer D, & ‘Warders’ by Sandy F

Foreword
by george vance

be sure to check the shadows’ angles
light-motif ill-lumened

headress on an ant-eaten lover
swung open
amoricide

cra-walking Eveward
the fruit’s red rind

splayed

After "Warders" by Sandy Florian

After-Warder
By Jennifer K Dick

By the subtle reminder
of her throat or the recollection
of that small serpent
diamondbacked seated on the rock then
walking, by the subtle
sensation of green a
reminder of homicide,
in the substantial nature
of suicide, by the subtle
stance of her or you, a
reminder of that way
we talk or chat or stop, say
to keep on, that way just
once in the dusk we’re
walking, I wake to
you and cloverbreathed
a community of walkers and
signposts acknowledging
the warders of Eve, so
pampered inwalled, so
ill-tempered, so ill-asleep,
this floating world
so ill-illumined by
the arc of a fruit’s red rind
the shadows on the moon

Monday, October 29, 2007

New: The Warders of Eve

by Sandy Florian

By the subtle reminder of that small serpent walking, by the subtle reminder of homicide, of suicide, by the subtle reminder of that way to keep on, to keep that way just walking, I wake to a community of walkers and the warders of Eve, so ill-tempered, so ill-asleep, so ill-illumined by the shadows on the moon.

New "Articulation of Shadow"

By Jennifer K Dick

Articulation of
shadow
................Body in
pieces. The hand
of a red dress. Red
maiden. The crimson
skirt of it. Rabbit
splayed open
to be swung
(or stung). What
does the body know
of its own discomforts
(nausea)? Am orange
velour skeleton. Hours
on his perch while
in a corner the blind
girl is clasped, tight
in the arms of her
anteater
.............lover.
A headless dress is.
Should be glass
headless paper-like
pivot ruby wrestler
a joint
eyed. Self-image as
in she, jumbled mis-haps,
misplaced cartilage
orange or
a faded (foddered)
greening map
of a body
MRI, X-ray, stethoscope
listening for lost
stenographer’s notes.
............Was cracked
and unmendable
.

After "Stainless Sunset..." by Michelle Noteboom


Glut

by Jonathan Wonham

He carries her, light as a shadow,
between the dusty vines.

She turns her face towards the sun,
eyelids shimmering, crepe papery.

Her sweet translucence
fattens his tongue.

Might the crushed city
from which they have come

gently reform over them
like children cradled in a concrete ark?

Through their teeth, the ladies sing
of that vast glut, of how

the glimpse is slipped, of how
a candle flickers on, untouched.

Sunday, October 28, 2007

New: STAINLESS SUNSET WITH INTERESTING WATER LOOP by Michelle Noteboom


Stainless Sunset with Interesting Water Loop
by Michelle Noteboom

Try bromides. Try bonelets. Try coming through the slag heap to bring this idea home. Because if you can see the shadow, what you’re really seeing is translucence. Even if you can’t tell what’s going up and what’s coming down. Another face-off in an urban space that speaks to dwarfing, while the redemptive element (human) seeps out in a vast glut of deconstruction. It’s pinguid. No one’s touching anymore anyway, so why slip the glimpse? It makes you think of a mine shaft. Of a lime kiln. Or an air-conditioned junkyard. In this image, you dismantle your own city – brick by brick – and carry shallow bowls to the hybrid slash. The vines grow dusty; the water, orange. And 15 days later, you still find yourself striving after the asperity that once would have been engineered at the core.

Saturday, October 27, 2007

After "Thursdays" by Sandy F, "Burlesque" by Amanda D, "Translucent Ant Skin" by Sawako N and "Cathedrals" by Rufo Q

Youthful Trust, Pre-programmed
By Michelle Noteboom

It’s the body accents and shelves – a whole new tightest bend in a field of natives. All that porphyry snagging the green light even at ten, glowing so clear like a bit of a bigger way into two-bit pills and three-dollar desires. But I, shiny, combing out indiscretions & taboos, all buzzed out and airbrushed into the night like no such thing. White-lit waiting until some sort of monastic explodes your horn (the most recent catch emerging out of the proverbial ground). Nearby skin focuses the myth of days, moon-flapped aureoles. The rhetoric reiterating the blaring stain on the violet shag: "there is no death".

Friday, October 26, 2007

After 'Echoes' by JD, 'I wandered...' by LM, 'Translucent Ant Skin' by SN & 'Tangential...' by BB

preprogrammed
by george vance

how the lonely crowed
placed-pokes memorized
shelved after-lifes

undulywoken at 3:
neon portico of the
endoftheworld café

sleepfall at 10
(six ghosts : the elders inventing
us-now)

Thursday, October 25, 2007

After "Burlesque" by Amanda Deutch & "In Somnolence" by Jen Dick

Tangential Truck Bed
by barbara b

Remembers her field work with Audubon's pickup boys
fading landscapes mythical two-pill nights in the bag
some somnolent picnic birds replacing sheep
countable say going up a burlesque
post-prandial nature trail
where non-native oats freckle the "bliss of solitude"
tamed practical romance squeals in the distance
her errings hazy on the side of shy should've bushed
the feathers handed the duffle to the dudes

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

After "Awakenings" by Sandy F, "Burlesque" by Amanda D, " & "Aire Tropicale" by Geo V

Echoes
by Jennifer k Dick

impel me toward
gnarled ironwood
spaced undertow

your voice pokes places forgotten
toward
flightless life-death

line
it’s you on the
don’t call back neon

marquises—what would it mean, shelf life,
toward a shapeless world: globules, static,
hold to glue to

keep in 3 am fluorescence
green light corner stores
together stains

toward
how I remember blaring
so the flame preserved

might still be kept alive
walk toward a voice, to a voiced
white light

nights kept unduly wide
even at ten am
awake, fall to sleep

gruel underwhorls
fingertips
prints and then backtrack

toward sound
now
this refraction mirroring

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

After R’s ‘Cathedral’, JD’s ‘Plane’ & ‘In Somnolence’, LP's 'offset' & AD's 'I is Another'

Aire Tropicale
by george vance

Isno I
pronouncing lineages after
4 liters of kava

dawn meets dusk
reins in light
gnarled ironwood
with bark(ack)ing flightless
kagu

life-death line spaced
at undertow
wherebefore porphyrins
mothersprang

Monday, October 22, 2007

After JD's "In Somnolence", GV's "Among" and R's "Cathedral"

offset

by Lisa Pasold


dawnmare taste of apples, undertowing

sweetheart barbiturates. the downy

comforter taken from the dryer just

so and pulled up over almost muffling

that bar next door (down beneath

bedside below the dog slumbering)

After "Cathedral" by Rufo Q

“to say suffering is not for nothing”
by Jennifer K Dick


That there is no death this morning
Rain
Lime-skin thin in the stark citrus air
Packages
Removed from pavement: what’s left?
Tossed
Dolls, sieves, towels, a scent of lingering
Ash
Transported along a vertical green line
Tides
Cast in then away, tropical music, fuchsia
Light
That lasts and lasts after the fall
Keening
A body, a keyhole, the whispering of his
Next
Door silence through the roar

After Plane by JD, I is Another by AD, FIRST AFTERNOON by Amy Hollowell

First Afternoon
By Amy Hollowell


Dances go like this
in whisps
one step four and two
back on the cheek
and still

like he said
I is
out of the cradle
endlessly rocking

no where to go for
the song but hear
in the first afternoon
brim with a
tangerine
jig.

After Bale by nm, Fragment 2 by sd, I Wandered As the Lonely Crowd by lm, I IS ANOTHER by Amanda Deutch

I is Another


err slur ur blurring
this I and I and I

ack ack lady is
at it again
screaming “ack ack ack ack ack”
at her window all day long
a reliable performance
pulling open the curtain and ack ack acking
till someone sees her
then she disappears

ack ack ack she goes
slowly churning minutes
with her sounds
untamed
projection of
primal core that we confine
in delicacy
and distance
drawls of color

you know you sometimes want to
“ack ack ack” away the afternoon

squacking squeaking gravel voiced
errring release this I
between eye and eye

loosen the reigns
a gallon of dark
drip of the ripe here.

New: CATHEDRAL by Rufo

Cathedral

All that porphyry to say suffering
is not for nothing, that there is no death.
Last night music came up through the shower
from the bar next door; then, this morning, rain.

Sunday, October 21, 2007

After BALE by Nicholas Manning

Plane
by Jennifer K. Dick

dawn
in the
love we drank raw
coats of varnished strings
whining between off-note arpeggios
scaled-flat somber air
paint the gravel awning
the eaves pewter
of her
hearing
a gallon of cider
apple branches
gnarled
whisps of hair
in my mouth
blues
on the rocking chair
this creek, creak
singing
in the maple
pre-lit
hue
the carbonized
dapple
off-
shore

After 'In Somnolence' (et al) by Jennifer K Dick


AMONG by George Vance

our aunty’s chambers’re
womany mentions
as lief a cot as not a
post-pills’ plangent pot o’
ottomanly silk-naps’ tea-steept
dawnmares
or
birds’ chirped maladies
wring lies before our
mornings’ upnings

Friday, October 19, 2007

After "BURLESQUE", "BALE" & "I WANDERED..." by NM, AD & LM

In Somnolence
By Jennifer K Dick

reigns in the love where a gallon of dark
remembers a certain kind of freckles where are eyes
our wakes dream up a field book full-up to no rooming or
board for Audobon’s non-native curls familiar tufts tailfeathers
in splices birds or beds I cannot identify through the erring haze
blurring eyesight spite this cold core in dappled
accidents, antechambers, duffles, sleeping sacks,
hammocks, posts, posits two pills when oats mirror
see the refraction’s a prism’s silk nightie toothbrush from 1920
the violet lamp would be a loose carpet-end, a spotted lilac
this awe or here, or her, hearing this drip, drip
tamed to picnic, say I am 28, 47, 99 —
take two pills (barbiturates suppose)
princess prices groaning up little fluorescent combs
her pink velvet pipe springs in the darkness
drawls of colour by the fading Romantic landscape
seals it in, squeals again, by wallpaper are
projection screen being the only seen right through trust
an issue, the counting, step down, sheep down
in the flouncy incisors dark velvet velour
to hear you errs at a bit of a distance
erstwhile emphasis on the pre-"beside" "beneath"
“bedside” notices we never see the tangent in an agency question
calculation agitation counting replacing sleep
steep climbs seepy tisanes shepherds and the "bliss of solitude"
in downy duvets, canapé-lits, comforters, night-lights
luminescence the howl hollow hailing in the
practical splintering blue

Thursday, October 18, 2007

New: BURLESQUE by Amanda Deutch

Burlesque


So they say
a certain kind of coat burlesques his remember freckles where are but I wake up a dream from of your parents a field full of native birds familiar with tufts and tails and feathers in places I recognize but cannot identify take two pills and am high sort of eat cereal flakes oats mirror see the mirror reflection toothbrush say I am 28 take two pills (barbiturates suppose) so they say princess prices are going up little fluorescent circles stickers with numbers $3, $5 , 50 cents for her comb $30 for her pink silk nightie from 1920 the violet shag carpet and lilac velvet wallpaper are

“Attachments” $3
“Tabu” $5
“Indiscretions” $6
“Desire” $3
for sale on the sink

you in your corner I in mine no rules rhetoric reiterate no memory “I honestly didn’t know you could misplace 20 years.” tell me this sort of stuff what do you they ask want you grow up as if it never happens you call and leave a message your voice pokes places forgotten that’s it you don’t call back in neon marquises of our shelf life in 3 am fluorescent light corner stores bodegas stain all over the us that is the United States how I remember it all blaring white lights even at ten am darling I hated it when you called me darling sucker punch good evening aureole tremens ring all these pick up truck boys with their hard ons and sweet sweet smiles displaced in vague parts of my body accents and shelves busy working hard to dispel the myth of days while the moon flap my gums grab my tits and my mouth gets in the way of so called progress


--Feb 20 2006

After Jen Dick's Intuition Incorporating Sandy Florian's Fragment 2

Bale

by Nicholas Manning

rains
reigns in the love we
a gallon of dark
core
d-apple-d
antecedents
drawls of gravel
draw colours by the fading
of to hear your ear errs
to hear this awe or
to hear this drip
of the ripe
spring
in
the darkness

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

After Translucent Ant Skin by Sawako Nakayasu & other

I Wandered as the Lonely Crowd
By Laura M

Slowly turning back to me the delicate
Flowers another Romantic landscape tamed to picnic
Translucent table cloth
Projection screen
And being the only
I can see right through
That beautiful
Truly
Trust
An issue

At a bit of a distance emphasis on the pre-
Positions: "beside" "beneath" so that hardly anyone reading
Wordsworth's famous poem seems to notice we never see

The proverbial money shot

Agitation and the question of counting replacing

And the "bliss of solitude"

Now of course I know there is no such thing

fragment 2, after Jen DIck's Intuition

by Sandy Florian

this eye between I and I
a gallon of milk
and a slurry blur
erring

Monday, October 15, 2007

After Nicholas Manning's Form Given by Fading

Intuition
by Jennifer K Dick

…………and the light will light of itself
appleseed and mirrordarkness………….this
I…… this
….multiplies……….eyesockets
..circuitbreakers……threeways..back
a way is
…………………block of
……………………………..antecedents

a back door……...a lie is
……………………………...……………cut to

folds in old colour
.……………………….imaging (ine) greatness
……….as granite….greyness…..as salt
the less softened………the lesser
……….host of itself
….. forsake it (un) seaming….will of
………………..logicstratasense of parallelisms
…………………………..sunkto
……….a priori, the selfless

intuition

Sunday, October 14, 2007

FORM GIVEN BY FADING . . . After BECAUSE MEMORY . . . by Jennifer K. Dick

FORM GIVEN BY FADING
by Nicholas Manning


the mirror of myself
is myself

playback : turning
logical antecedents ceding
stricter like
-nesses

“give light, and the darkness
will darkness

. . . of itself” – Erasmus

the host hides its gee
-spot turning on
from on

to textures plentify
I multiply plies
in lies

break to indication
give cut to old colours

by what this greyness images in
it forsakes the seeming
the less softened
stone

Because Memory..., After AND ARE GHOSTS by Cole Swensen

Because Memory of These Spaces
By Jennifer K Dick

the apparition.....is.....what appears
is the void of myself
is my void…….....my ghost is
void

…………...…...emptiness of
me this apparition is empty
perspective of void of a parent
reflective of
appearances……..reflections
a vacuum

……………...…is this?.....an apparition
what is appears………is………..vacated
stance of me is…….…a void
devoid of my meaning.........this
ghost is………………a parent
apparent……….ing
of me

PS

an after thought


I really did have a magnificent magenta dahlia once
It sat on my desk for almost two weeks
in a brown glass bottle
lion faced and ecstatic

DAHLIAS UNDER FIRE response to Jen Dick's INTER-INERROGATIONS after my INVESTIGATION

DAHLIAS UNDER FIRE
By Amanda Deutch


How did you know dahlias would appear so often?
always in the dirt
bending televisions broken murmurs
stumble over blind bodies lying on concrete, pedestals, cowboys
in questionable pockets
maps of night masked in
dubious outstretched arms
form shadows misleading
rivers

pull out
a gasp

dubious outstretched arms full of dust bunnies
almost religious in their purity
soaked interrogation

mother spilling blood, spitting axes
uprooting
nothing
dahlias, magenta under fire
simmer on the vacant stove

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Inter-interrogations, After Amanda Deutch's INTVESTIGATION

Inter-Interrogations
Response 2 by Jennifer k Dick to Amanda Deutch's "Investigation"

Mistake dirt under staircases for waves
Eyelids, metros in the soaked duplex
Of air speaking. Barley haloes or crop circles—
This awareness held in hand at 5am acts like
Crystal barely discernable in night’s jilted pocket.
If only tin cans of stumblers in that bumbling reflection
Could uncurl the linguistic spirals, the maps misleading.
Flat miasma of questionable air, masked
Magenta layers of interrogations—fog’s tattered wisps.
A message carries its outstretched arms.
Bury responses to syntagmes under dahlias on fire.
Pedestals, Picket fences, marble terrasses form a shadow.
Finale come like mother of pearl splitting the axes.
Glint at the blind starscape, or the house of air.
Rooms where relevant syntaxes in broomclosets gather.
Dustbunnies, stick up cowboys, models: What relevance
to breath’s slow remaindering?
A gasp in the tides
pulling out and back, simmering on the vacant stove.

Root Sytems, After Amanda Deutch's Investigation

Root Systems
By Jennifer K Dick, after Amanda Deutch's "Investigation"

Mistake dirt under her staircase for waves
Her lids, metros in the soaked duplex
Of air speaking. Barley haloes or crop circles—
Yes, relocation sometimes makes an axe.
If it weren’t all a hoax anyway, spritely
Syntaxes and responses to syntagmes under fire.
The awareness she holds in her hand at 5am acts like
Crystal barely discernable in night’s jilted pocket.
And yet, if only, then another run-down flat, a reflection
In the tin can of stumblers shagging in her bumbling alley.
Miasma of air, questionable layers of interrogations.
A magenta pond where fog’s tattered coat wisps
Toward her carrying a message in its outstretched arms.
Dahlias and pedestals. Picket fences or lawn guard.
This white decimal comes to form a final point. Shadow
like mother of pearl glinting up at the evening’s blind starscape.

Friday, October 12, 2007

fragment, after Jen Dick's ***

by Sandy Florian

looking for the instant that
seizes me, but it’s the author
of me that provokes me
to look away

Thursday, October 11, 2007

INVESTIGATION, After Sandy Florian's AWAKENING

in response to Sandy's poem, 'Awakening'.
by Amanda Deutch


Speaking of air
filth of the night
something barely discernable to the eye
soaked in duplex and pearl

one must ask oneself sometimes
“Why do I insist on staying awake?”
It is simply that—an insistence.

reflection in the métro
mistake it for someone else
wave

dirt under your eyes (lids)
eyes’ lids
and yet more staircases

maison de l’air

house of air

Monday, October 8, 2007

*** after Nakayasu's TRANSLUSCENT ANT SKIN

***
By Jennifer K Dick, after Sawako Nakayasu's "Transluscent Ant Skin" posted 7 Oct 2007. This post is from 8 Oct 2007.

Not the skinned ant in the lion’s den or the apple peel. The tingling legs of the helicopter or were they blades? Who is the being that can see me, for instance, truly glowing? The red airbrushed translucence : morning indelicateness, fuchsia lilies powdering the closed throat of me inside, breathless, away from.

For that matter, she has been hard at work for hours on her most recent catch: tadpoles. She has frog fear and orange butterflies flagrantly nodding against her ear. A single anything might emerge, but instead we are caught in masses of ants, herds, hurdles, huddles of park picnics sprouting their own demise on knobbly green lawns.

You might admire the crescent of that half-orange, there, moulding in the underbrush, but I know the leaves will come running soon. Auburn flakes rattle against our voices, call cavernous caving hibernators inside stony apartments. A flatline, a chime caterwauls. Not only this crisp rustle of praying mantis paws held forth in delight, but the sandpaper exfoliating my thin remains.

Monuments to voices, predators, spindly furry eggs of a tarantula : Where is the (her) (my) universe of the ant in all his miles? My gaze merely the glass tower of Torino. Vertigo. What aquatic blues are silkscreened over the curtains in an enclosure? Walkways toward transportation systems. A respiratory line the crumbs marry me back to, forth, industrious as I am.

NEW: Translucent Ant Skin... by Sawako Nakayasu

Translucent Ant Skin in Spring
by Sawako Nakayasu
(posted 10/7/2007)

Everyone has been hard at work for hours now on the most recent catch, half an orange, I believe, when one single ant emerges out of the ground, at a bit of a distance from the others. All the rest of the ants have been pre-programmed to keep its attention focused on the orange, but I can see it quite well, the way the ant catches the light: the skin of this ant, shiny and youthful, giving the freshly sprouted green leaves on that nearby tree a run for their proverbial money. Now of course I know that there is no such thing as skin on an ant, but trust me, it is truly that glowing, and truly that beautiful, it’s not airbrushed it’s not photo-shopped it’s so clear I can almost see right through it, and being the only who can see it, for that matter, I turn and sigh at the delicate flowers who are slowly turning their backs to me.

TATTERED after Cole Swensen's "And Are Ghosts"

After Cole Swensen's "And Are Ghosts" from 4 Oct 2007, this from that same day: Tattered by Jennifer K Dick

and three days it took her……….........……whole
haunting inside the sidling….marrow
seascapes, waves,….……..….landmasses….powdered over

distances elongate through snow……..……a gasp
hovers white in the night………..air a ghost
of what architecture………….she………...might’ve

gone to, touched………..……..wooden siding, that
aluminium roof’s red tile……….…….angling
11th century—Italian?………or newer—nearer—inside

the beads fingered……….a code………….of her passing
coddled….…against the freezing blades…..…winded
grass, hollowed corn stalks…..…yellow wheat

fields’ white…………..……..and the waves
she pressed lips to………whispered………inhaled the rose
to grow back to………………….as if to sprout

yet, to rewind him…….…..there,……..…along mottled
pew-rows, a bony hand….arthritic
gnarled uncanny recanting…………………..softly

to the pebbles…………here……….….time’s crunching
miles and miles……………...….in her breath
night or……....…..the blank……..…….....road filling, billows

harrowing……….…..of his stated prairie………of her farms
opening pages reading………….….lines from psalms
voice that ricochets...to fade….…..to bones………sanded flat

New: AND ARE GHOSTS by COLE SWENSEN

A draft in progress from 4 Oct 2007 (please note, as the blogger format does not allow long lines, that this original was in all couplets plus one final last line). Posted with her permission:
And Are Ghosts
by Cole Swensen

and are ghosts also inextricably linked to snow?........three days it took her
to get across Nebraska.....and the whole time there he was.....her grandfather

in the passenger seat....refusing to be frightening....and tried to hold him
as he came closer..........and the more snow the farther....the body came to be

his heartbeat of her sobbing at the side of the road at his funeral as the censer swung over she alone
saw the small wind as it happened to start snowing which is always softly who was looking and her

grandmother asked as they were leaving the church did you notice? when you would have thought
he’d moved on days ago and at every snowfall in her uncanny silence she thinks with the help

of his haunting she may someday without the falling.

Sunday, October 7, 2007

LIKE A WAKENING..., after Florian's AWAKENINGS

Like a Wakening Form of Being
Response to "Awakenings" by Sandy Florian, posted 5 Oct 2007,
By Jennifer K Dick, also posted on 5 Oct 2007

so that the flame preserved might still be kept
.....................so that I may be so unduly, so undulatingly
wired in the incandescence of this
…………………….whirling after the six-shooter in the near day
asking for intervention, waves
…………………….askance in the alcove of all this
so that I may be sleeping may be preserving
…………………….so that the horn-hymn-whipporwhorl birdcall
in the ignition of the bic of the zippo
…………………….interminable stance sentence of the sun’s scope
or captain’s wake devoid king
…………………….or son’s of kings on the angled threshold
thrush of neck exposed to the dark of this
…………………….threat of a legend of a whispering wind
under marked doors dimples dire demands
…………………….ululating dime stores and piled pick-ups dusted
perchance pleased or pleading
…………………….prayer-bound-up in mesh, rugged roped, cuffed
or simmering in the knelt-by furnace
…………………….or encroaching desert, mounds, and burials
should impel, me to compel, me to
…………………….sons and then the staunch vermillion, the burgundian
sky of this or broached topical units labelled lineage
…………………….scraped shoulder putting the back up to beam to
veer past the mythology and behold
…………………….eye in the, still central nervous brachial retchings
flame fortuitous as language, Babel or Babylon,
………………flagging in the lugged-along limping of what could only be
tide-netted
…………………….a state

New: AWAKENING by Sandy Florian

Awakening
another excerpt from The Tree of No
By Sandy Florian, posted 5 Oct 2007 & moved here as sample


I scarcely know whether I am awake or I whether I am asleep, and when I lie asleep, I see all his glory, and while I lay awake, I behold him, now wide awake, in the vision of my dear sleep, so that the flame preserved might still be kept alive, so that the flame preserved might still be kept unduly wide. So I, awake, fall to sleep just now begrudging my own rest to keep the world so broken, so tightly woken, just now begrudging my idea that such a consideration should impel me toward the novelty of attention. So I, asleep, awaken, like a wakening from sleep, like one half woken to half more trouble than half his dreams, like a sleepless lover, like a sleepless walker, just like a ghost just after six, so near his death, so near his dawn, where early morning’s early rays stand asking for invention.

A horn, a hymn, a wild bird's call, centered small in silent’s hall, Montgomery’s mire, a wook, a brook, down again we fall and fall. The king himself awakes himself to his own slow will untouched by will, to find himself devoid of sense, while captains wake the sun’s high hell.

FRIDAYS, after Sandy Florian's THURSDAYS

After Thursdays By Sandy Florian, originally posted by her on Aug 2, 2007

Fridays
By Jennifer K Dick
5 Oct 2007:

its like bewildered widened wakening to the blank lack of milk in the caffeinated beverage unmurkily re reflecting black back at’cha, atta girl, goin’ get ‘em she’s right round the bend of the blizzard this buzzard pecked bleak beaker of “what cha drinkin’ tonight Sal? sale? Sarah? Sonia?” shrill seal her back into the mire, my eyes stealing a thrill shut-eyed momentaneous blinking until I think it is mid afternoon, no, it IS mid-afternoon, so where or wired the day dawning drawing droop droning on then to don her had, her head, her hope would picket her fence or that cat-in-the-hat nature of the tipping goldfish bowl in a land where her memory is as long as a red elephant, a blue dish, dance that old fandango, eat a mango, chop it all up to the slop shop, hand me a boa, she’s a doll caterwauling ‘long the catwalkline, keepin’ her in mine, is all, ‘tis called fall girl in the green flesh of it petting zoos or feeding bins, the land’s a scrape, a pine, a pencil scratch in the fogged over windowless lace of her cut out cubicles, or I am then wading in the waiting against the wooing her on the phone sitting like a heavenly bee blitzed out on the spandangles of her glitter, this diamond in the gruff smoke-stack ten-pack a day voice, that bull’s a dyke you can’t get over your knee, so strapped on, the bald peal or her laughter’s a sweater sweating angora down into your nostrils, lips, tongue, taste the tattered matter, the hat madder of her maidenformula, this One is forty weight transformer oil, a Buick in the rough, ‘gotcha get it on, tra la li and humpty dumbed it down for Madame four-eyes or -years or -o’clock on this tick, tack of it staged or straggling, zipped into them chaps, her chops not gonna knock any me, any more, down and then where would Alice be, a top, a bottom, pressed in or being pressed to below, or above, the bottled kizmit of Blondie r&b if only Beyoncé were free for dinner we’d dine her, weed diner, and the silver bullet train’s sidling past the cur, the cub of craps-line curbs to lay 50 on red or reeds in my ears shimmering, high C, or see to call it out, to check in with the ump, to give it up, my eye, give it a wink, then let her go

New: THURSDAYS by Sandy Florian

Thursdays
By Sandy Florian
(Orig. Posted Aug 2, 2007 on another blog, moved here as a sample starter text.)

it's like poking my head out the window in some sort of monastic quarrel, like a yellow yoke, a rouge cheek, or an earing like a christmas ornament dangling from the leftish lobe, then it's like a rocket, or like a rocket launcher, like the way you roll down your window, with more glitz, more bang, and then the bomb explodes and there's a whole new world right about the time when you honk your horn around the tightest bend, then it's like a midget in the crown of the elephant falling flat as a crepe on the ground, the phone sits so close to me, and when it's like that, there's a bit of a septimal glow about it, my tits are hanging low these days, and there's a bigger way around the bend, and i'm looking bewildered on this bewildering stage blinking like a new born baby trying to wipe his eyes out, the phone sits so close to me, like a heavy bee all buzzed out

Revised HOW TO: INSTRUCTIONS for Invited Authors

AFTER-WORDS : I have always been a fan of the response poem, the imitation, the riff, the play off of someone else, the hommage implied in imitations, the fun of seeing the spaces where someone else's voice meets or strikes against my own, the space where two other author's voices meet or combat--in short, I adore the putting of voices into dialogue. Is this not really the history of all literature to date?

So, in the spirit of the web being a web, intricate invisible lines spidering between our solitudes, our solcial plenitudes, Sandy Florian & I (Jennifer K Dick) have decided to start this blog and send invites off to other poet friends--YOU, invité(e)s
And then what?
Two things may happen: "ZE RULES"

I) RESPOND TO A TEXT ON THIS BLOG:
You are invited to Write a text after someone else's text that is up online in this blog. Limitations?: We do NOT mean you should post a poem or text after one that is already in print in a book, as not by some poet of yore--go ahead, write those post-Milton Paradisos in the lost lands of our 21st century, but please do not put 'em here! This is for a NOW dialogue, between voices still haunting the lands of this globe, putting the present into dialogue with the present. In short: post texts after other texts on this blog, and please sign your texts with a name. Note: There are no limits to number of response texts you can post per month. Hopefully we will end up with chains and chains of texts...
OR:
II) POST A NEW TEXT to GET A RESPONSE:
You can also put up a text as an OFFERING--meaning an invite for someone else to riff of of it. Otherwise, how would there be enough texts for us all to dialogue off of? The rules regarding this are 1) not too long and 2) no more than 1 "new" text per month per contributor, at least for the moment, to see what happens.

How to TITLE POSTINGS
For responses, put "YOUR TITLE + YOUR name" in the header,
Start the message with "After..."
ie: "After Thursdays by Sandy Florian". If this post comes awhile after the original, feel free to put info in a more complete format to help us locate the original text: i.e.: "After Sandy Florian's Thursdays, posted on 4 Oct 2007. ".
Be sure to TITLE your new work and give YOUR NAME: at least first name and last initial, and not a coded posting name, please, in the spirit of open exchange. Thanks.
FYI:You will note that for indents you will need to use "......." to create spaces (at least this is my method) and color them in black from the paint grid to get visual tab-like breaks to work at all. Good luck with that! Maybe you know other ways to do this?

For new texts requesting responses, put "New: YOUR TITLE + YOUR NAME".
Then, in the message, feel free to just throw down the text, as in start with your title.
WHAT TO DO IF TITLES ARE LONG?: use part of it as headings. ie: If the title were "A METEOR OFF OF MANHATTEN" you might put "A METEOR..."!
OK, now we are all set!

The result of all this?
A poem/textual ping pong, as it were!
To be published in print format by.... who knows?
Maybe it will happen? Or at least this will be fun!

Please, respect the works of your fellow authors and do not parody or satire them in ways which may be harmful to their precious (our precious) egos! But DO still have fun and see what emerges.