On the Trail of the Book

At dawn stanchions

stand at attention

when the pearl

sky with smudges

stretches

The bridge is the zone

of dull shadows

nosing around

the washed out snapshot

where the word oblivion

affixes wings

to the paperboy

and the road

is a partisan

smuggling colored thread

inside the cinder

garden The flickering

maiden will unfold

a garment of smoke

and embroider the name

of the air

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Benjamin Gantcher’s poems have appeared in many journals, including Slate, The Brooklyn Rail, and Tin House. His first book, If a Lettuce, was a finalist in the National Poetry Series contest, and he has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Painting: Ryan Schneider, I’m All Around You Now, oil on canvas, 96″ x 144″, 2010.

Awful Math

The commotion surrounding the awful math grew to a hollering, and soon Jenny pitched in an extra twenty dollars saying, “I’ll just give more, that’s all.” But that wasn’t all, and once we were in the car, she was off on a steady pace about which one of my moron friends was going to be wheeled out on a gurney from the force struck beneath his brow. I said, “Calm down,” but she turned back stern and spit, “How many twenties would it take for you to make your spidery arms into fists and cuff those assholes?” and I said, “Four,” thinking of a hundred, and she said, “That’s it? Eighty bucks?” and I said, “Oh wait,” then I said, “Five,” and she said, “You’re just as dumb as the rest of them,” and folded her arms tight like stuck drawer. By then we’d driven out so far that we were once again surrounded by cedars, tall and unflappable, and I tried to think about money and how it was made.

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Sophie Rosenblum’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in American Short Fiction, New Letters, The Iowa Review, and elsewhere. She is currently finishing her first novel, which was recently a finalist for the James Jones First Novel Fellowship. You can find links to more of her writing at www.sophierosenblum.com.

Photograph: Spruce Pond, by Bob Gates.

Congratulations to Bruce Smith and his incredible new collection of poetry, Devotions, which has just been named a finalist for the 2011 National Book Awards. What better a time than now to give our online readers a sampling of his work. This fabulous poem, Devotion: Midrash, originally appeared in Issue 6 of Dossier.

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DEVOTION: MIDRASH

Strings did things to you: held you at one end while you

became deranged, made you forget the inamour, swerved

around the realpolitik, the stink, made a cup for the god

thirst, hid the tent city, relieved the money grief for three bars,

four, bandaged the open sore, realized and blamed the systems

for a blink or two, made (poem) the consternation of coins

falling through the slot on the coffer of the bus (chromatics

and discords) seem like the truth of the end of suffering

(the third noble truth).  They took things far.  Strings made

wings of things, (nouns verbs), held down Gulliver, made

flavors and spins of our duration, made the guitar

a question mark, lost the thread.  They made the rain

come down for a couple of beats, which was the riches,

the tender, the fat stacks, the math.  So the poem (the great film

festival of spirits and sobs) goes on with its fornicating ways

and its clemency for the engines (little, think, could)

which keep it suffering (the first noble truth).  The audience

for this (we can’t agree) will be you or homies, Buddhists,

Prince Hal in Birkenstocks, birds, texting men, enraptured,

ruptured girls left alone in the tent city where they summon

their darlings through perplexed strings.  How do you know

the levels of our sadness without a string across an opening?

How do you get a flood in a bowl, a core sample of the unsung

summoned from pluck (you), the synthetics or cat gut

of zero sum?  Strings made you midrash the stuff, sniff

out the perfume (the ocean, the flower), chew the root, express

the part where we’re talking to ourselves from the part

that’s not.  We have a way (fourth truth) we employ

against the day depending on whether you’re Keats

with your nose pressed against the window of the sweet

shop (devotion, attachment – the second noble truth)

or whether you’re the woman on the bus –

two kids, one crying, eating a cracker from the floor,

one about to cry from the what for.

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Photograph by Eric McNatt

THE WANDERING POETS (by Philip Levine, from Dossier Issue #5)

As they return from their pilgrimage,

footsore and disgusted, only a few

wear jackets and ties.  As usual

Gerald is the most emphatic: he stands

at the corner of Broadway and Spring

and demands that an angel descend

carrying a glass of tea sugared

with a little lemon and milk—

not a big deal when you consider

how far he’s come without the least thanks.

It’s early April at the center

of the known world, somewhere tulips

nudge their way heavenward, forsythias

blaze until you have to look away.

Somewhere an axe falls, somewhere a boy

hurls a rock, somewhere the answer

is waiting to spring from the black leaves

of a mountain oak.  Gerald has fallen

to the sidewalk and the lunch crowd

steps carefully over him; the lesser writers

scurry toward their cars or descend

into the subway to make their appointments.

It’s so quiet only you hear the poem

he’s polished all his life, delivered on

a froth of blood and meaning everything.

Jean Hartig is a poet living in Brooklyn.  Her chapbook, Ave, Materia, was published by the Poetry Society of America in 2009.

Image: Pierre Bonnard, “La Cheminée” (“The Mantlepiece”), 1916

Sommer in Europa

Bären schleichen über gefrorenen Boden und kratzen an deiner Tür. Ihnen ist kalt und sie hören die Grille, die du um den Hals trägst. Gefangen in einem ausgehöhlten Kürbis. Immer auf deiner Haut. Warm und sicher. Ihr Zirpen erinnert dich an den Sommer. Die Enge und die Dunkelheit sind nur temporär, nur für ein paar Monate. Dann darf sie wieder gehen. Du sagst, das sei ein fairer Deal für euch beide. Und dass du im Winter auch nicht viel aus deinem Kürbis kommst. Du hast einen Felsen von Innen vor die Tür gerollt, damit die Bestien nicht herein können. Jetzt macht dir das Klappern der Schlösser keine Angst mehr. Ihre Pranken haben scharfe Krallen, aber du hast Holz und Stein und Eisen zum Schutz.
Neuerdings trägst du immer Holz und Stein und Eisen im Körper. Seitdem du durch das Dach auf den Haufen Schrott gefallen bist. Deine zerschnittenen Händen hatten rostige Abdrücke auf dem halb geöffneten Fenster des Taxis hinterlassen. Der Fahrer hatte die Scheibe wortlos nach oben gekurbelt und war davon gerollt. – Gegenangebot. Fick dich!- hattest du ihm nachgeschrien. Auf der Rückbank eines anderen Taxis konntest du dich nicht entscheiden ob deine Hände grauenhaft oder fantastisch aussahen. So cool! So abgefuckt! Dann wolltest du mir dein Bier über die Haare leeren und mir ins Gesicht schlagen. Alles was nicht nach deinem Kopf geht ist für dich langweilig. Ich hätte dich einfach küssen können, damit du bekommst hättest, was du wolltest, aber der Frieden war die Konsequenzen nicht wert. Du bist ein betrunkenes Einzelkind, das allen die Finger bemalen will. TOFU LOVE, GOOD TOGO, READ Y2GO, DUTC HRUB. Jon meinte, dass keiner mit Moral dir je eine Tätowiermaschine verkaufen würde. Dann hatte er einen unmoralischen Laden empfohlen.Vielleicht hatte er sich in dich verliebt. So wie sich alle immer in dich verlieben.
Unter deinem T-Shirt, das aussah, als ob du es schon in der Grundschule getragen hättest, hattest du keinen BH an. Du hattest behauptet, dass man in Mexiko und Japan zu Titten Chichi sagt. Zuerst dachte ich, dass du vielleicht zu viel geraucht hättest, aber dann war mir aufgefallen, dass du einfach nur ungeschminkt warst. Am liebsten hätte ich es dir gesagt, aber dann hatte ich es doch lieber bleiben lassen. Ich kenne dich nicht gut genug. Vielleicht wärst du beleidigt gewesen.
Du meintest, dass du dir heute Federn auf die Haut kleben wolltest, um dich frei zu fühlen. Weil du keinen Klebstoff mehr hattest, hast du dir über beide Arme Gummibänder gestreift und die Federn darunter geschoben. Aber du warst zu ungeduldig und dann sahen die Federn nicht mehr nach Federn aus und du hattest nur die Ärmel eines Pelzmantels an. Du hast mit einem Küchenmesser die Bänder zerschnitten und jetzt stehst du nackt zwischen zwei Daunenhäufchen und bunten Plastikfäden und deine Arme sehen aus, als ob du zu lange in einer Netzhängematte gelegen wärst und zwischen roten Striemen leuchtet getrocknetes Blut wo das Messer zu scharf war, der Gummi zu spröde und du zu hektisch und dein Kopfkissen ist leer.
-Warum drehen sich die Discokugeln in dieser Stadt nicht? – hast du gefragt und versucht einen Lichtpunkt in deiner Hand zu fangen. Je länger du weg bist, desto froher bin ich, dass du weg bist. – Das ist der, in den ich verliebt bin…äh, war. – und Asche fällt vor Nervosität von der Zigarette und – Es bricht mir das Herz so gehen zu müssen – wird zu – Hoffentlich können wir dann zusammen spazieren gehen – zu – Lass uns zum Mittagessen treffen – zu – Vor meinem Auftritt ist ganz schlecht – und kaum habe ich dich aus deinem Koffer steigen sehen wird es auch schon wieder dunkel. Trotzdem würde ich dir gerne eine Nachricht schicken und dir sagen, dass ich dich vermisse. Nur so. Um zu sehen, wie du reagieren würdest. Ich habe Kleister an meinen Fingern und lege sie auf die Kugel und drehe mich und die Punkte drehen sich mit uns und wir bauen ein Floß aus unseren Körpern und treiben auf dem Regen nach Hause und hören das Zirpen und das Kratzen und sind nichts als das Licht, das wir reflektieren.

This is another excerpt from a forth-coming book by Thomas Mader and LNY.

Text by Thomas Mader
Image by LNY

Hypergraph Fortress

A concrete giant tied down
on top of a blanketed cabinet of has-been and lest-we-remember.
Deliberately blinded.
Senses heightened through loss of others.
Located far from eye, far from heart.
Invisible through the trees,
exposed to icy winds,
bitten by frost.
Mutilated and crippled, limbs removed.
The limits of reduction pushed to extremes.
More with less.
Inside temperature: 36°C/96.8°F.
4 times 30 minutes of sleep every day.
5,5 hours sunsight, 0,5 hours sunclipse.
Alternating harmonizing units of total efficiency.
A complete documentation of all my actions every 15 minutes for the last 63 years.
Resourceful thinking means boundless harvesting.
I am the lone center of the cybernetic beehive,
the last inhabitant of the one-town-world,
the aggregate of all enemy experience.
I Gatherer.
I Collector.
I Universe.
I Phantom,
abandoned dysfunctional unit of total isolation.
Chained to my designated workplace,
left drifting in nutrient fluid.
My ears pierced with antennas,
my mouth sewn shut.
The silence is spherical,
the echo is sinusoidal.
The retina scan shows 1 image for every 1000 words.
Welcome to the Nano-cinema,
the chronofile of hypergraphic dreams,
the theater of dimaxion warfare.
It takes me away,
to the island of bears,
to a childhood that is not mine,
that I have never lived.
The cables snatch at me and pull me back,
before I can unfold the polyhedron
and run from continent to continent.
3 clocks for temporal orientation.
Washington, Berlin, Moscow.
I can hear the snow falling,
Waiting for an opponent I have never seen to make a wrong move.
In a world game that is long lost,
I Singularity.
I Orphan.
I Human.

This is an excerpt from a forth-coming book that is a collaboration between Berlin-based writer Thomas Mader and artist LNY. We have a few more sneak-peeks that I am going to post this week. Right now they are calling the project Borderlines but that may change before the book comes out.

Image: LNY
Text: Thomas Mader

Sharon Mesmer and Connie Deanovich are both reading tonight, Wednesday March 16th at the Poetry Project. If you haven’t been to the Poetry Project, it is an awesome cultural institution, staffed entirely by poets, that was founded in the 1960′s. It is a gem hidden on St. Marks Place, which as of recently has swapped sushi spots for punk-rockers. I guess Sharon and Connie are friends from way back who haven’t read together in ages. Sharon Mesmer is one of the founders of Flarf poetry- created by combining the first lines of obscene google results – and is often called the poet laureate of Brooklyn. She is one of my favorites so I’m sure this should be good. Here is an amazing clip of her reading “Annoying Diabetic Bitch,” “Ass Vagina,” “Squid Versus Assclown,” and “You F**ked Jimmy.”

Wednesday, March 16, 8:00 pm
Poetry Project
131 E. 10th Street
New York, New York 10003

Just as the weather starts to warm up a little, I am reminded of all of the things I love about Spring. New York City in the springtime is truly an amazing place, as everybody crawls out from their respective rocks they have been hiding under the whole winter and greets the world with happy energy. You also realize just how many people live here when everyone comes outside to play. Personally, I think it is the best time of the year to be a New Yorker, by summer we are back to complaining again about the heat or desperately trying to get out of town and by fall everyone is fearful of the imminent winter, but Spring is truly the season of possibilities. With that in my mind, I am posting some footage from a poetry reading my friend Stefan Bondell put together last year. He is busy organizing the next one for April and I can’t wait until it is again warm enough to sit outside and listen to some poetry in the greatest city in the world.

Here is Vito Acconci musing on light and dark:

I have no idea what Terence Koh is saying but it sounds awesome:

Anne Waldman has the greatest energy:

It is Stefan Bondell’s impressively large artwork in the background. The canvas is covered with shredded dollar bills and oil splats:

I love that Stella Schnabel is reading off her blackberry:

John Giorno is just pure awesome: