ars poetica

POLARIZATIONS

“A madman doesn’t need success. All he needs is a good hospital.”

Mohammed Mrabet

Experiment is an accident

no matter how carefully planned.

Can’t you see

I’m walking

between abstraction and magic

Because that’s who I am

The buffalo of the Great Plains

ghosting skittish herds

on Champs d’Élysées

under deconstruction. Supervised

by The New Pound Projective

Semioticians

and The Magicians of Jazz Street

Medicines & Mirrors

Weight gain & Hair-loss

Wallpaper of Hollywood Muse

Switching between Calvinist

projection and a drunken buffet

Call the doctor

or print your own magazine

Distribution is academic.

11/23/2000

—Michael Rothenberg

____

Previously published in Small Town

REDWOOD FLOODWATCH

Below the radar

Used up

I’ve forgotten

what to write...

Historically

Geographically

    GUERNEVILLE

Redwood decks, a middle-class colonialism

       I don’t write

when morning comes,

a bell, the terror of quotidian

Heaven in a coffee pot

Winter rain

     90,000 W/OUT POWER

  No, I haven’t forgotten

what to write. I have a list.

FLOOD LEVEL- 32 FT

RUSSIAN RIVER TO CREST AT 46 FT

“What’s your address in the redwoods?”

Redwood, “Sequoia sempervirens

A very tall, evergreen, coniferous tree

“Sequoia, Cherokee who invented Cherokee alphabet

Sempervirens means ‘ever-living’”

And beyond that:

A POT OF CHICKEN

SQUASH    ONIONS    MUSHROOMS

IN WOOD STOVE

Components

Constructs

“Native to coastal ranges

of southern Oregon and central and northern California,

having small seed-bearing cones

with peltate scales and unflattened branches.”

     CREEKS    SPILLS    SEEPS    FALLS

“Some Native Americans stripped bark off redwood trees

to gather sweeter cambium layers for food”

Hot tub in the redwoods

    HIGH WINDS OFF PACIFIC BLOW DOWN

    FROM ALASKA BAY

Donald says he’ll show me how to climb a redwood

Listen to wood stove

(Audible)

RED CROSS

Shuffle wood in stove

BLIZZARD IN SIERRAS

Dennis says,

“Do you believe it, you own all these trees!

“You own me,” I tell the trees

(under the stars)

Begin again

Continue

Pretend

Preview

Vacuum carpet downstairs

“One of the survival strategies of redwood trees

is ability to sprout from bud tissue called burl”

HIGHEST TIDE OF THE YEAR

“If a tree falls, logged, or trunk damaged,

the burl can be triggered to start sprouting new growth”

EVACUATION

(Audible)

“The sprouts use the root system

of the parent tree and are genetically identical”

Who’s to say they’re not the same tree?

NEW YEAR’S EVE IN THE DARK

Past

Present

Future disconnected

Who wears a hat?

Who discusses this?

Who is? (In the immovable grove)

scratch   twitch   scratch  rumble

NO WAY OUT OF THE CANYON

madrone  oak   tick   black tick   toc   creek

green mossy coffee mug

“Second-growth redwoods often grow very fast”

            CONDITIONS WORSEN (AUDIBLE)

“Often, stumps in old logged-over areas are ringed

by smaller trees that grew from roots of parent tree

These rings are called ‘fairy rings’"

   gray hum

Opossum stalks creek with walking stick

MUD SLIDES    ROCK SLIDES    LAND SLIDES

Submission

   Natural O-Currency

EVERY DAY A NEW DESTRUCTION

Needles clog the gutter

Quail scratch bark mulch to find seed

fallen from bird feeder

DEAD DEER IN THE SLOW LANE

What war?

Which war?

Is it ever a good war?

Fog on the deck

What door?

The open one?

What for?

The war?

NERVOUS EYE ON THE HIGHWAY

Oh, The Redwoods!

This New Growth door
Go ahead, open it!

Frogs!

(audible)

                        BLUE SKIES

Blue Jays wake the morning

Yes! Come in!  Sit!

I’ll be    right     with you

There’s a war I must finish!

I will win it shortly

December 19-28, 2005
March 3, 2006

—Michael Rothenberg

____

Previously published in Golden Handcuff Review

ANGELS SLEEP IN PEACE!

Angels sleep in peace!

Devils stay past midnight

listen to Paganini

Pretenders, King Of America, Heartless Liars

Have you heard them playing 8-ball while reading Content’s Dream?

Did it matter when the Army closed

imagination’s terrifying halls to Strategists of Art?

No, it doesn’t make sense to matter

No explanation needed for transfer of funds

from one pocket to another

For those Charlie Chaplins entering data, boiling nouvelle shoe leather soup

Supping on Valentine’s Desires and Therapeutic seasonings

It makes sense

Angels sleep in peace!

Devils stay past insomnia

& possum scud across the roof

Listening to accusations of the trite and trivial from Fashion Fascists

Reveling in accusations of the ideal & naïve

soaked in gross dependencies & mother

Have you heard them in their drunken dance

on granite floors,

in the rhythm of Sisyphus?

                        Would it matter if Superman

disappeared in his glacial fortress and forgot about Lois Lane?

No, it doesn’t make sense to matter

No explanation is needed for the transfer of sperm

from one pocket to another

For Cryogenic Automatons taking surveys & grants, boiling eclectic dialectics

Gorging on Cornish hens & Sweet & Low

It makes sense

Angels sleep in peace!

Devils stay past gunshot

& sweat soaked orgies

& tender whisperings

Have you made up your mind,

in those white silk gowns,

hair loose on freckled shoulder,

licking your own nipples,

raising your naked ass to four impossible walls?

That I should be persuaded by repressed exhibitions of genitalia

Does it matter when crisis rings

the death of a poet & saw-grass fires kiss his naked guilt?

No, it didn’t add up to verse, or wake the angels to salve the clawing innocent

No, it doesn’t make sense to matter longer

No explanation needed for the transfer

of one fish from one

Amazon to one aquarium

on a bookshelf on one hill above Pacific shoreline

For Game Hunters tracking down genuine tears & renderings, boiling conceptual logic

Mounting vanquished language of invisible jaguars & hornless rhinos

           On walls…

It makes sense

For those lazy drifters beneath the stars

2/21/98

—Michael Rothenberg

____

First published in Kickass Review

DONALD HALL WOULD HATE ME

if he knew me
I don’t want to be great

it takes me 10 minutes
to write a poem

sometimes
& then

I want to whisper or
shout it about
town

My poems are usually brief
they resemble each other
they are anecdotal
they do not extend themselves
they make no great claims
they connect small things to other small things

I LIKE SHORT!

I just want to kick the leaves
& have done

—Mairéad Byrne

Post-Coital Depression

Now

after the parties

and after the Seders

a few scant hours before the POWs come home

(and home is here, this is their home, and this is my home,
far from my friends and family and far from their friends
and family and the things that any of us would call home)

Now, on a quiet Saturday, I ponder art for art’s sake

and art for society’s sake

and art which by its nature could never last

because it is too specific

too focused in its condemnations

and not at all metaphorical

Today I ponder the role of an artist

at the close of a war

and the dawn of an empire

And what it means

to believe in something

anything

in a time of blind faith

in blind and stupid leaders

Today I am an artist and a businessman

so I look over my projects

what is due, what is due me, what will be due soon

what must be achieved today so that

other artists will still consider me important

so they will come to my rallies

and come to my readings

and thank me for my politics

and thank me for my energy

Today at home

I think of the best way to relieve the burden

of living, writing, and voting in the country

destined to conquer the world

Today I think of stacks of burning bodies

dictatorships established in the name of democracy

and the motherless sons who will come back to America

and do everything they can to bring it down

and what does that mean to anyone,

anyway?

Today

the POWs come home

tortured beaten terrorized

and I will celebrate

with my city and with my country

and I know

that this is the last day we can call ourselves

a Republic of Laws

today

I fear for myself

I fear for my son

I fear for the Arabs

I fear for the Israelis

I fear for the Persians

I fear for the Americans

and I fear for every artist

who makes art for art’s sake

who won’t speak out

at the end of our world

—Jonathan Penton

“Post-Coital Depression” was previously published in the anthology, BANNED (Meta4, 2004)

Deep Throat Nihilism

Never forget that beauty is destructive

and poetry is its most destructive form

Poets do not ask permission

When you sing Ave Maria in the library, sing it loud

—Jonathan Penton

“Deep Throat Nihilism” was first published on kagablog.

Atonement Fast

If you could take

every time

a Muslim fucked someone over during Ramadan

every time a Jew killed someone during Pesach

and every single St. Valentine’s Day massacre

and put them all on the page

you’d have no more room

for angry little poems

—Jonathan Penton

In the Company of Them

So I’m sitting here in San Fran

In another used bookstore

On another hipster block

In this fuzzy hipster town

And I’m browsing through the bookstore

And I’m looking through the comics

There are shelves of graphic novels

And I think they must be recent

From the flashy well-done covers

And the hip PoMo technique

So I grab some graphic novels

And I’m setting on the benches

And I’m getting up, and walk around, and find a comfy chair

So I lean back, and I’m comfy, and I open up the comics

Which are trendy, which are clever,

Which have lots of lit-techniques

There’s this one with the stone giant

Who starts out as a hero

Who might be old King David

or George Washington Carver

and he bests the evil villain

who was belittling his race

but now he’s getting bigger

and he just keeps getting bigger

and pretty soon he’s enslaved all the creatures all around

the metaphor was obvious

though the subject imprecise

He might have been Israel

Or maybe Nashville, Tennessee

But the book was tortured, troubled

And so exquisitely drawn

The artist must’ve worked

As long as Karen Hughes been ugly

It was twenty-eight dollars

U.S.                                              dollars

with      proceeds            going to                                  charity

And I’m looking at these novels

And I’m looking at the shelves

’Cause there’s dozens of these comics

Dozens of these graphic novels

’Cause there’s dozens of these artists

Dozens angry tortured artists

Who sort of kind of made it

In the graphic novel world

But if you walk down through the Mission

Past the chickenhawks and junkies

You’ll find hundreds of these artists

Who will never, ever make it

Though it’s hard to see the difference

Between the published and the losers

Because every artist’s screaming

Every artist’s fucking screaming

Every artist wants to warn us

Of all the evil that we do

They’re all warning and they’re screaming

And they’re bringing up the issues

With their hip PoMo devices

And their so unique techniques

And besides the hundred artists

There’s a thousand folk musicians

With their lyrics tried and tested

And their chords so true and blue

And besides the thousand singers

There’s a million sock-drawer poets

Who’ve put down their San Fran paintbrush

To write of what will happen

To warn the world of what will happen

If we let a madman rule us

If we let the wealthy lead us

If we sign away our neighbors for another cup of Starbucks

And the artists are all drawing

And the folkies are all singing

And the poets all recite their angry lines at open mics

But there’s no one really listening

No there’s no one really listening

And the few who clap politely never do a goddamned thing

But the days are getting hotter

And our lives are getting shorter

And the Fertile Crescent won’t be fertile for four billion years

While MSN reports on Fox News

CNN reports on Slate

CBS reports on Sharpton

And Al Sharpton studies Fox

While the talking heads keep talking

And the bloggers keep on blogging

And the artists keep pretending there is something left to say

—Jonathan Penton

On the many things I do not understand

He speaks of a passion, strange and wonderful

I think of Joanie Vollmer

I study her death beside Tupac’s and Cobain’s

I wonder at the precise size

of the hole in her forehead

I think of writing, this attempt to force others

to spend a moment with the thoughts I think every day

He tells me that he caught the literary bug at a young age

That’s good, I tell him

Better that

than for it to catch you…

—Jonathan Penton