It's a Fine Line by Jonathan Regier

after Tones are lickin' under by JKD, Approach Misled (Translation) by Sue Chenette, Distillations by Geo Vance, The Music by JW, The Greyhound

In the city night, it looks like a fine line one hundred kilometers away. It has nothing to do with the laws of perspective: it looks like a fine line up close. A homunculus is riding his bike along the line.

I ask him, "Are you a Virtue, a Cherub, or one of the tribe of Seraphim that hide their multitudinous eyes behind peacock feathers?"

Falling off his bike, he shouts, "Be quiet! I'm not far away. It is a ... 'fickle gulf'!"

When he says, 'fickle gulf', the heavens shake as if a tremendous Scrabble piece had been turned over. I cover my head, running to the shelter of a nearby tree.

The next evening, I understand the situation better. It was indeed one from the class of Virtues that I met last night. They must be so tiny because of the very fine lines that they navigate in the world. The winds doth rattle the hand: one must slide one's finger along the creases of the petal or dangerously lose the sense.

The next evening, I approach him from far away. (Although it's difficult to know when I've gotten close enough, because he doesn't change size.)

I holler, "Orchidblues!" A storm cloud appears beside his head. A yellow bolt of lightening pops from the cloud and shocks his hat, and all the felt and stuffing explode.

He looks up at me with terror. He begins racing along his fine line.

"'Hello-tropic'! 'Hype the love'!" (I'd prepared all of these that morning, noting them on a morsel of graph paper that I folded up in my pocket.) A milk truck flies out of the intersection with its horn running so fast and long that the doppler effect puts a shiver in my spine.

I laugh deeply and bellow, "Thou dost ride thy bike like Job himself!" Then: " 'Please relax', 'Shaft of salad', 'Writing about snow'" . . .

A greyhound--which had been hitherto the stone adornment of an ancient fireplace--springs to life and speeds alongside him.

"The spheres turn and comets whizzz, but nothing can out-pace the greyhound! He is faster than television, he is the fastest of all the arts! He is faster still than even Virtue!"

Stake Your Turf, by JKD

After Memphis and déshabille-toi by Lisa Pasold & Schoenberg in Pieces by Johnathan Wonham (click their titles to read thier poems)

Thinking, exist, break going down to perform, low bow
which does not fire but yowl, outside triangulation
Strangu- can leave and not perform that satchel scale
which does not carry on, stitched to thinking flight
on Beale Street and again, and to gain “it’s not exactly
speech” (screech to a halt, squeal scalded arpeggio)
which dares not, ground to a—you or ya’ll yawled, say
yew, stretch up to, reach that, state your name or, say:
“demographic of departure”, a flight of stairs, 12-string,
downtown, grit or grind of the bar, sleep on it, stale, yawn
out that yarn, that tale, that good ol’ boy tune, think, stay.

Schoenberg in Pieces by JW

After a fragment by JKD and Schoenberg Variations by JW.

Does that bread not exist? Perform one bow
which cannot exist. Which does not fire.

One that can perform bows triangulated
can exist outside. One which leaves and bows
does not not perform that.

The sachel which does not exist
cannot perform the bow that does exist.

Which carrion cannot perform stitched?
Not one. And which stitched cases cannot bow?
Not one stitched case cannot perform bows.

Does reaping that which exists stitched
not perform that which cannot bow?

Does one exist which takes no bows?

Perform. One cannot take flight.

N/O/1

after Jen & Jon by geovance

OH NO! NO-ONE? OH.

NO O? NO 1? OH.

NO-ONE WON? WON NO-1. OH.

NO WON. NOW ON. ON WON (ham). OH.

JON WON? NO, JEN.

NO 1 1.

HO.

onononononononononononononononow1

EauNo-one, by JKD

After Johnathan Wonham's NOON


ooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
(eau eau eau eau eau eau eau eau)
nnnnnnnnNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNo
oooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnNNNeeeee

The Materiality of Language, by JKD

after J Wonham's A language apart


A language of quarks

how we say words

pulled apart

like us

Inhalation wavelets by Jennifer K Dick

After Jonathan Wonham's Malt Whiskey, Nostalgia for Fire


Fire on the inside, snapped adrift on the way to mourning, last train

rumble to ramble homeward she aloft within a framework of glass

and concrete metal beams encase. She is thinking of words and webs

fingers scaling over bruised surfaces as if time could repeal action,

disactivated. Kick, hover, reasoned list of forgery, forgets.

She plasters herself to the pane, suction cup of each fingertip

sticking her to now, and then now.

homme age à mon eage by RQ

after JW (and FV)

thirty
one
more
than
no
thing

To be read, perhaps, in reverse by JKD

After Lisa Pasold's Whoops-a-daisy..., Jon Wonham's In life the rampant mind has limbs and Tall Tale of Short Hours by Amy Hollowell

Clinging onto the rampant limbs
because these were things we would not do
not see not be part of not parting
being the thing passing through or
bygone

nights not anymore
risking time and pinned-together boulevards
the intertwined life of its own mind
when the red and yellow fall
in an orange nightscape

inverted constructs rattle and sliver
unseen along the scenic drive

elsewhere cliffs and ruins of old tunnels
tell me about the centuries of battles and treaties
of a cobbled route up which someone drove us
of myths and unknowns
this was haunting if we could be there

but in this small car on this wide and vacant road
there are only elevated furrows
extended courtyards
barriers penning in a preordained timeline
telling us how what was was

you, for example, whispering
words syllables clicked consonants left underground

so when I was there, later, I could unearth
remnants because things
like cut glass, painted pottery, bronze blades,
gas masks, spittoons, an ivory comb, dictionaries
that are left adrift never came back

because there were things we would not do
anymore, to hear me listening, to be
in the enunciation or simply riding
round and round on Bay Street, arms interlinked,
until everyone would clamor awake
dawn overbright in the joyous crowding

whoops-a-daisy (nuit blanche, toronto) by Lisa Pasold

after after seeing lots of bad art (and a little good) by jkd & In Life by Jonathan Wonham

what are the sections
sections of? that rampant mind
leaping from World of Warcraft: white bobble babies
inflate along buildings, muscular cherubs (security guards
checking their umbilical power plugs). a certain amount of walking
towards that vodka pool, backwards bank door,
hotdog stand, carny ride. did the Millennium Angel
distort so, melting brand ads three-storeys high?
the train station was filled with dry ice.
Union Station train station? no! he didn't know
about that. whistle blowing, blue snowflake. unfortunately
the dancers
were not naked. sometimes the bench
is not going anyplace. sometimes a person hopes
for less. such as,
everyone should wake up
today. with that ride still going around and around
down on Bay Street, arms linked and joyous crowding.

Apologies for Absence by Amanda Deutch after Slow Waltz by J. Wonham and all the poems that came before it

Apologies for Absence
Amanda Deutch


I am slow night waltzing,
a sleeping pill,
a scratched valise

Life, I mean

House, the next field

Pours
******* through
**************the waltz
and I will
waltz with you

even though
I don’t know how to

in the rain, in the heat…

Take, we must
Take.

Is that really so?
Everyone seems to be saying that these days
Take? I don’t want to take.

back to the quiet game
of world tracing,
creating in the palace of destruction-
alright under any circumstances
just because it is.

very yes no by lisa pasold

after sean s & Jonathan Wonham & Amanda Deutch

writing's amputations - what gets chosen, that arm, this foot,
the precious organ or childish hysteria. oh mineral memory, repeated
on the tongue or against fingertips, to be tweeted and texted but
better folded between pages. light pushes into the bones,
filling spaces. metal pins
keep the vertebrae perishably but tightly upright
like a vase, like a profile. a toyful betwixt/between, the eyes
distracted by study, graying, fraying, porcelain skin.
getting dressed again, life
as daily psycho-killer. quilted flesh, covered, rebalanced. fingerprints,
tiny buttons, a fresh wilting letter by blackberry
from the shiny physio office.

Jonathan Wonham by The Porcelain Bird by sean s

after The Porcelain Bird by Jonathan Wonham

In stilldark mornings
he tells stories children waking with
bedtime tales their parents
in the night asking to be
put to bed by them faces
like clocks in rooms with unlighted
lamps and hands
like stories pull the graying fraying wordclothes
bedwords to brave and naughty chins.


I am the porcelain bird.
I cannot tell the difference between girls
and boys, they are either ends of
a chiral from a storying catalyst. Just as
I spiral from poet to parent through the closed
doorways of sleeping rooms


my voices unite somewhere under the quilted
dream flesh and moments.

A Hauntless Wind by Brandon Shimoda

after A First Hypothesis by Jonathan Wonham


Even so
It was the first hypothesis. Who said
So tramp
The result was once a loss? The tramp said
So
He grew a horn

Of knowing. Now that is impossible
However, But
By shining a sharpened light
Into the daw's bridal hemorrhage, The possible
Came in
Spite of its loss. The creek

Became a flood
The daw drew out its losses
Destroyed the lap of potatoes

Would they grow angry? They would grow
Angry
Was the second hypothesis

The creek became distant
The result of which
Was not exactly proof of its disappearance. However

The daw
Wore a wig
In its illness, Breaching the flattened temperature
Of illness
The result of which
Was not knowing, Exactly, But

Result. The tramp put the rubber into his cheek
For the day before he had first kissed
But who, The tramp
Was in a room
With an angular black
Only a hauntless wind in mind

The more the tramp turned, the less
The tramp shone
The less the tramp shone; It said yes

KNOWLEDGE by G Vance

after A First hypothesis and A Second hypothesis by, successively, J Wonham & J Dick
by g vance


even once
a 1st hypothesis falls
on the 2nd
impossibly flooding microscopic panes
against the snow of results
;;;;tentatively lost in the hard angle of absence
;;;;where floors meet solutions
raining proofs .......examined certainty battered
into a shorn theorem
capricious as a solid/liquid
between-/-cut


^^^^^^

A second hypothesis, by JKD

After Jon Wonham's A First Hypothesis

Even a first
.....................hypothesis
was a lost result
.....................said
knowing impossible
.....................once a creek
flooding panes
....................against glass snow
on the microscope
.....................fall, crystalline

***
Examined
......................this result
not proof
.....................only tentative
as certainty
.....................the result knowing
not rain battered
.....................but the hard angle
of absence

***
As if
.....................I could be
sliced
.....................where the floor met
your pipette solution
.....................result a hauntless wind
known impossible
.....................shorn among that
granular theorem
.....................as capricious as
cut liquid
.....................between solidity

Dropped in here, by JKD

Cut-up combo + adaption of by The Porcelain Bird Jon Wonham, Rabbit & Pork by Rufo Q and the Poem "Letter 1" from Dan Machlin's book Dear Body: (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2007)

I am a cluster, droplets of a nothingness, your prayer, if this is the year of all that must kill, bomb, of a child’s egg, I have words: porcelain, lay, cabinets, a toilet, gents, seasoning, sometimes in great numbers, that which is forwarded. Marked. The endangered, if you please, past clarity. Send the body. Of Lagavulin, the teacups, bowl with birds in the birds in the handle cracked from flowering, I suppose. If with you we see living, never meet, non-acceptance, winters in likes (by lakes) to cause, for a cause, we tend to temper off. In children’s feathers, fathers of brave little birds. It is death, is it not? And has set the year of the priests into motion. A hymn to become man, tiny beads as in birdfeed, song blown to craters inside which she finds Madagascar, breaking. Fuss, perch at bedrooms, tell bodies and girls at all removed sequences that which is read about or off in lists. Caskets by mandrake roots where we plant bulbs. Opportunities to sunbathe are creating symbols. Iconography. Things lie down—as now, listening at night to stories, naughty, threatened panel-painting of crucifixions. I am never this house. My father’s. Ours. That that one lives is no comfort, no mourning could give know-how, nor species insight. See or seen? Shoot post-free in the cold, sprouting. Of porcelain, post-partum, ruby-red-robed Calendula eavesdrops on the bees. Is your missed nuclei sunbathing? Has he gotten lost in cross-pollinations? Ruins thinking of symbols, hagiography. Fissures in its eggs cry flush, commonly look out for the passage of figures: this Japanese tree as snow. We are in our separate, if only concomitant, events. Where to fuse the terrace, when to stun back again? I was a museum of our first litter. On all the porcelain lists, bowls, toilets flying toward a sluggish hotel. Angels clasping detritus, letters making numbers in a convex angle to still be calculated. One falling off, then the next, crumbling. This bird in collections resembles a city disabused. Mask the unpredictable fro-ing, he is spent where his limbs lie down. It is only that which I can graph as a point.

Technical Question by Jonathan Wonham

After Amanda Deutch's: "I am pretty sure I have asked this before".

Am I sure before I ask: Am I pretty?
Sure I am sure. Pretty sure. Before I ask.
I have asked this. I have asked this pretty.
Am I pretty? I have asked this before.

Ask: am I pretty? Ask! Ask!
Ask: was I pretty before? Ask for sure.
Before I was pretty. Am I sure? Am I sure?
I sure was pretty before I asked this.

Sleeplessness is reward itself on this suspended pavement by JKD

After I edited out the « I » by Jonathan Wonham, and The Street by Chris Pusateri

I'm hardly awake, borrowing darkness
as if walking floodlit on self-edited lines.
This burgled thought pinched, swept out
of an ibis’ pocket, old lady or sapling.

I am primeval, a spectacle of myself
edited into the borrowed bright-lit brasserie
from which I roam emptily caffeinated
squeaking promises: a have-to, a trying

daybroken cowering pharmacy exhaust
before this scrupulous series of lines
lining pages or griding thought to thought as
if I could almost get out, sidebar, space, blanket.