CONTRIBUTORS: Spencer Selby, Jake Berry, Sheila E. Murphy, Michael Basinski, Ann Erickson, Scott MacLeod, Andrew Joron, Alex Cigale, John Noto, John M. Bennett, Heather Thomas
Address: 977 Seminole Trail #331, Charlottesville, VA 22901 E-Mail: SLeftwich@aol.com (Subject line: Juxta/Electronic)
Jake Berry
ARTICULATING FREEDOM
THREE BRIEF NOTES REGARDING THE CONTEMPORARY UNDERGROUND/OTHERSTREAM
1. By designating particular works as experimental we dismiss them as
unproven, hypothetical, of questionable veracity. This is our means of
allaying the unknown's imposition on our intellectual security. It is not
until the work is analyzed, cataloged, and finally judged valid that it sheds
its ignominious, obscured and burdened now by whatever aesthetic code may be
in currency. Yet, what we are too apprehensive to witness directly is the
very thing we profess to seek. We erect a shrine that obstructs the
beneficence of the power toward which the original impulse arose. This is an
ancient condition, mythically tragic. We are method's hostage. What we know
of reality is not in what our terminology proposes to address but only the
terminology, as it is an aspect of nature, itself.
2.A poem is not the telling of a thing, but the thing itself utilizing
language, in whatever form (and however the definition of language might be
extended), to transmigrate from one "place" to another. It trans-forms to
awaken to itself in renewed aspect, and to awaken others to its experience.
The poem and poet call one another to a common ground of being, where they
constitute a single entity. To be more specific, a poet is an individual
poetic entity biologically appearing. It speaks, it bodies forth being,
participates in the theater of objects. What might be the essential nature of
such a pansubstantial creature can only be discovered through direct
confrontation and mutual dissolution with in the shared domain, the
anitpersonal dynamic this union cultivates. We are speaking then of the
phenomenology of the open field. Yet, we must speak in the negative only
since any absolute assertion would only project an apparition onto the field.
The actual projection is the whole field of poet/poem and all participants,
indistinguishable any longer as individuals (and there is much that surely
remains unknown, latent in the field). And further, the field itself, being
open, is never subject to definition, but is realized through experience,
through communion in the common nature its very appearance makes evident.
3. Finally, we should not concern ourselves with the establishment of
movements or schools, by the name 'experimental' or any other. There is
nothing noble in relinquishing our presence here to the status of artifact,
shelved, another moment documented and weighed against the rest, even if that
moment is granted fundamental importance. It falls on us to strive for a
cognizance liberated from static ideologies and subservience to the symbol.
The histories must be ended and the museums closed (they both are, as we now
have them, closed anyway). We must find value in the moment's appearing
rather than the misapprehended corpse of its past. With that approach it is
our responsibility to be and allow creations presence that have in their
character no tolerance for the spirit of closure no more than any other
organism can tolerate imprisonment. They are creatures without dimension, the
living courses of liberation through the infinite.
******************************
Sheila E. Murphy
THE WORD TOAST
The one who painted himself insecure to others kept using the word toast as
if to beg the power of a talisman to coat his shack with bullet-proof
transparency. If victimed by the fact of a transparency. Many acres since
have been inhaled into his possession. Headlock mates with slides the
heart's eye makes. He races to unfinish lines before his hypothetical
opponents can consider factual arrivance. Do they make fun of his cleats,
his hand tooled pistol, vats of acid he owns shares of. Do they make fun of
eyes that fathom poverty as he has known it and consistently misplaces into
future tense. Do they see all the way into his bones to know no blue blood
he would feign can swim in that vicinity. Do they reduce or see him evenly.
The one with life to prove yet wears a petproof winter in which shepherdly
behavior leaks a frothed blue breath above the cars. Would any shoulder
minus sainthood let his head be there. He wouldn't question custom. Only
would continue his embodiment of big screen things no one can tender
very long inside a heart however stretched toward forgiveness.
Sheila E. Murphy
CONSTRUCTION ZONE
Prom queen glibly as a print embodied muscularity of artist's line not
bandaged from her whole heart. Through my fault, through my fault, through
my most grievous...shells made fragrant through erosion. Downtime seemed
maternal. She line segmented a cough, made plain the diseconomy of
splintering. Bruised texts, up for renewal for which she was instructed to
remember code word anguish from the hot line. Untended parks once neutral
places left their hinges. Watching became the highest form of flattery,
sand grains entering the winded place of children. Forethought requiring
that one conquer through division the prime number feminine. Much charted
waters attributed to blank space in the equation.
Cornerstone, pure water, software, a hotel
******************************
Michael Basinski
3 POEMS from CATACHRESIS MUM
nupid cupital
eel elm allusion
awl arch
emballing the lover's ear
encircle a more in music
never mute
will hear the lowest bus
to the use of the tongue
chance dance a sovereign
throne torn thorn thorny squeal
peel! and fill'd feel flock of
forest all so hearted O lOve list
wish lust knot must longer longing
graze on my lips or upon ship
sip rose hip tic
tock but her jesses (thongs
passOnion
As the height
corresponds to the length
of the possessing zone
neglecting the term of the sun
and defining
the mean residence
time is given
******************************
Spencer Selby
POSSESSION
Tale of wicked dawn
outside image weapon
makes me accomplish
consent ravenous
Narcotic asserting
furtive and vocal
given to like advantage
enduring the day
the mind the house scatter
dark room speech
covenant no way obscure
paradise hollow dream
in suicide past
Strike bulging maze
said generation now
almost sky fear abandon
one another
Eat matter in public intimate
rage stone not look force
within killing words
broken cutting burning
between your millions hidden
and paid for empty
Written with a shut door
spinning faster body
to inhabit when I'm
out in the cold or stuck
in midway country
Put down drop ever wealth
return years' foothold
foreign music lost on
such deep liquid
Heaven sent ground motive
blazing shell street current
hand in the way of desire
becoming helpless
Rain over miracle sign
needle facing inward light
mountain roots of power
finds me more at the start
Spencer Selby
SO LONG
Life again set off
by chatter
ring around it rushing
perverse material
defended like it was a hymn
Press seed charge from
roots that narrow
soft blow begging brightness
weary intimate
voice of age in advance
Together with the only
world I know for certain
death
flower petal eros nature
down the appetite I'm hearing
with my head
I've seen black eye
to carry habit
look nothing break loose
total be granted
more work fall apart
shadow I promoted
Now years after
there is plenty earth moaning
at my embrace hidden in
shades of dramatic
give it a chance
Instincts reawaken
what I didn't think
was action needs quiet
blood trail and damage
of a very rare moment
No silence touches remorse
as larval quality
no tangent temporal feeling
remains in the past
I point toward in my
strung out wish
Spencer Selby
REFRAIN for J.T.
"The opposite of a correct statement is a
false statement. But the opposite of a
profound truth may well be another
profound truth."
--Niels Bohr
Gifts are free gifts
in a room I believe unexposed
Line to line words to action
uniform mark on the left of history
space immediate on all sides always
a poem about singing reasons for singing
vibration period circle numerous
glass to knowledge door to meaning
and back around the price we pay
death to shadow medium forgetting
continuous negative pains to harden
loop to loop talent for crossing
posture pose beneath above
infinite number battle with motive
ring for wonder surprising dominant
room of light remaining in darkness
divine affliction around and around
what it is you answer what it is I question
In the middle unfolding
in the present we're trying to have
******************************
Scott MacLeod
THE LIFE OF THIS PERIOD
being freely passed from hand to hand
we can only react to it with complete disdain
forget the reciprocal nature of its duties
above all confessions of men obsessed
against any and all professional risks
the simplistic theatrical portrayal of the beyond
[into a diamond, all blind and interior]
these footsteps occur in a region
desire to proceed beyond the insufficient
hold it to be specifically modern
[to hold the cult of men in deep distrust]
unhesitatingly the notion of jumping off the track
all the betrayals lost their footing
[too late for the seed]
burned, if we can believe his words
for derisive laughter rumbling
is not any number of men
constituting a closed circle
for the suppression of everything
and informers run around loose, the time lost in waiting
years, leaves them perplexed, psychic force by a
means which is nothing, an animal from a
flame or stone -- heaven help the most typical and
characteristic, though it were true conviction
I mean of the acceptance or the
nonacceptance of this regime, no way competitive
partly understood, confused, in defiance
our allegiance to the principle
of historical materialism
there is no way to play on these words
noticeable decline in the ideological level
of the most undesirable intellectuals
a progressive loss of awareness, this control
cannot be exercised in political circles
"working" and scheming together,
[a pleasure seeker] in a harum-
scarum sort of way
in less time than it takes
to tell those mysterious friends
forced to confess the talent and force of Trotsky
(your name grows larger week by week)
such divergences, about-faces and betrayals of confidence
wheat from the chaff, the sincere problem of human expression
as though for the pleasure of travelling, dumbfounded at first
admirably and perversely, to annihilate this ridiculous romanticism
anything but the first cry, sovereign and limitless
truly harrowing, finding its end in itself
and aspiring only to serve
just as pointless to protest
no longer any "useless mouths"
shamelessly castigating
hitherto exercised to the full extent of its powers
torpedoing...the idea in the midst of the sentence, he retires
into the happier world no one had ever dared conceive of
lucid, awake, he would be terrified, capable of opening
that how-to-swim, into the water, now forced to say
completely consumed the other beneath the tropical stars
of all human constraints the ridiculous tradition
young after the passage of centuries, this reconciliation
rendered absolutely impossible
the baleful bread to the birds
the sordid quests for every integrity
to run absurdly, learning it
in snatches, submitting oneself anew
to discipline, befouled, senile,
rank, sordid, lewd, doddering
the fact of the matter is that M. Battaille is simply very tired
the light that will cease to fail
brief beauty concealed
dangerous sentiment of living
welcomes the discharge of his sad rifles
******************************
Ann Erickson
(having lost all)
the moon is (like
the Turkish flag)
below the star
and the sky
like smoke
in stripes
of blue
and green
and red
Ann Erickson
cult leader waits for a sign from god
assuming the rational but having taken
my pleasure in the universe I cannot be
disturbed by dropping bombs
I await orders from the semaphores
of hyacinth the signal plum
battalions of daffodils
smiles of the shopkeepers freebox clothes
donations of salads mailbox existence
the sun blares wisps of clouds
dark reasoning video screen
recollection lost where are the files
******************************
John M. Bennett
TORRENT
Past the luminescence-ceiling crawled flow of noodles
steps shine bath oil and light I eat my shirt with
parsley garlic lick the radiant bulbs with heat slowed
//clicking in the flower bled where's, under, hawk
chatter swaying table//OK, was you, over, the last
tumescence reeling through your small law//knew less
brine, wrath of//boiling kites and feet sly hurts
lists hardly ticking. The "Radiant Bulbs" with meat
glowed mixing in the shower-head//air's plunder
gawking nattered preying's fable (Oklahoma's blood)
the new sower's task (effacing, peels of skin,,,,,
John M. Bennett
SLIGHT
Spam truth sun sings fatty wind the looser tooth
reserves loitered phone or puling armpit hair,
slats of putrefaction stones fall off your foot
noose returns charming lists of repetition better
than. Your bones in guttered rain of birds...
John M. Bennett
RESIDUAL
Pall ignored chants of seed chance stayed sandy
table glass floor ladder stepped within your
swept delay across the roof wings of acid wash
or clothes oasis stacking trucks I guess, the
tense display of rust vapid chaw or else.
Asking stuck shawl slept (planted in the gas
tank roots
******************************
Andrew Joron
INVOL
Just as Chaos keeps its hidden orders -- assuming that Beauty
is beyond scale -- if, & only if its iteration is driven to
Fury -- so you have crosst my Tongue with the oldest knife.
Skepticism must ban the sight of Utopia: a straight line is
the deepest labyrinth. Natural language has no author. The
reddening of the landscape coincides with the movements of a
clock.
Fascicle 1
The first line was completely crossed out, the second barely
legible. The words were enumerative and blood-linked. Each
possessed a shadow that hovered over us in the shape of a
hand; abode of a star-gripped paralysis repeated in the gestures
of Inhuman objects.
Fascicle 2
The terms were perfect sections of the voice, skewed in
consequence of a dreamt assassination. The letters, neither
flame-like, nor flower-like in that world without sound, were
aligned within a lacerating machinery. Denuded, then left to
wander through rooms of interlocking narrative.
Do immeasurable spaces exist inside one point? Here, you have
painted the walls to purify my eyes, littered the floor with
objects too cold to touch. Yet I am consoled by your philosophy
of the Infinite Cage.
******************************
Alex Cigale
Angelton -- James Jesus
Nervous spies always crave locked mouths. Your staff,
your Honetol victims were tested looks.
The uses of your ancient safes to conceal the
identities of spies from loose security
were substantially safe, "beyond peer review",
"worse, no one had the combinations",as
you played favorite W.C. Fields with
roll-top desks filled with deliberate "detritus"
a bodyguard of lies concealing "the
precious Nick Nack marine file", sound long term
precautions to safeguard the exits of spies
who trusted you alone. You didn't believe
in the technology, weren't going to share
information through terminals blinking secrets
throughout the building. An "elusive mole" was able
to "blink" computer secrets just as your alleged
"paranoia" foresaw. (See: Index, The Cold
Warrior, "Angelton James Jesus -- paranoia of".)
When the great battle was over the gravediggers
came and, while cutting their dead throats, told the
corpses what they had done wrong. "Angelton did not
believe in the technology." You and the ancient
"Grandpa" safe mocked on agency parade
will always march in the First Cohort of spies
that accepts seared beaten warriors as normal.
Still you would not disclose, not even to your death
in dishonor, the identity of Nick Nack(s)
held by you in so silent a place the inevitable
traitor could be identified in some distant
year on activation. You alone correctly
foresaw what would destroy world trust in the
capacity of the covert services
to keep their mouth shut. The final disaster.
Marlowe and Helen still carry the Eagle on a
Trojan horse with Nick Nack and Ann not far behind.
Did Nick Nack die? Not while your safes had him.
Where is "Grandpa"? Clearly your Fermi
Accelerator Laboratory for
the wisdom of ancient treason, always
and forever bringing mirrors to Mother
from the Cockroach Universe of spies,
endlessly recoding into your DNA
computer bases the precise mutation
to mass defined on impact by the elusive
scattered particles of new treason, flipping
the coded bases the norm calls errors
to razor balance mirrored Dirac
universes, CJD fusing Angelton
neurons by infinite mirror coding
into strong forces top vomit quarks mutating
by pulse down the DNA spine of your and Kim's
beloved great spongiform game of Trojan
basics: if two mouths know the name of a spy
spies die. Ask the Guardian Editor!
You are entitled to a closing argument.
******************************
John Noto
ROBOTIC- BIRDSONG NOCTURNE: POWER-DOWN
Late last night on microcassette
I felt ribbons flown in the beaks of sparrows
slash the lips of metropolitan aexual steel
mascara
gliding over crucible landscapes
in patient stilettos
Voice activated
through lipstick banners of blood
and current drawn from small reaching hands
you've wired
eyes for crying down incestual cheeks
spilling over with rouge and flour
Shaped like a bright doughy bird
cut from paper dolls
for a cat's eye
sucked through the failure-to-please conjunction
Wind-tunnel
I reel
in the shadows of your knees
in daughter-of-the-nails
fatherhood on hard-drive
Flame-retardant
living in the age of writhing
on-screen strange tender dreaming
Deflects
toothmarks deeper than I thought
gnawing your temples
my palms
Grasp the glandular language
tuning speech amplitudes honed to knives
pulled across two mouths
slurring
puffy
intercourse sectioned to kill
phonics screaming
your voiceprint on my lips
disassembles me
******************************
Scott MacLeod
HOW BEAUTIFUL THE REPUBLIC WAS DURING THE EMPIRE!
our territorial admission and denial
[whatever. nevermind.]
albeit at intervals
well spaced
out from one the other.
(1924)
he knows what women
he has had [daily more discontent]
abandons a portion of the
terrain there remains
madness, the generous
supply...
Some German girls with birds in their hands.
The author attacks a character. Where we
really find them again is (at the point)
where Stendhal has lost them.
by far the most important
part below the surface in a waking
[preceding day, dark foliage, stupid branches]
I am sorry to have to speak about it
idea, this woman, disturb it,
only the marvelous
(long) before the author has been freed
painfully inflicted, the spirit
of demoralization.
we contemplate taking
it seriously: regions clearly
marked
sibylline for the
uninitiated
irrevocably my point of view.
deriving from hunger,
akin to spoken thought,
offering this one
slight
criticism:
[one of the sonnets composed]
in this supernatural dream-state,
in malice,
simply to orchestrate the marvelous score.
of so many echoes
literature is one of the [saddest]
roads that leads to nowhere, silence
(threatens) to settle in, incapable
of failure, against death,
lightening-like,
highly unlikely.
there is no conversation
in which some trace of this
[disorder] does not occur.
mysterious effects and special
pleasures. beauty of the
spark obtained, these
images
which enrapture it
equally imperfect, dangerous and
inadmissible territory
a burst of laughter, daily artisan in memory.
when that happens, this system is as good
as any other, indifferent to all
the world's ballets.
existence [is] elsewhere.
******************************
H.T.
hand.made
this time only the man with the shortest memory survives
(inside now, how far can we go?)
he will dig a hole
(the obsolescence of a hand-made life)
in hypertime
only leavings, arrivals
(screen of special effects)
he will dig a hole and plant
late bloomers with shared history we can only invent
trees, a broad-leaf magnolia protruding
tied with a red bandana
half the people in America are looking for
(inside now, how far can we go together?)
setting the light, washed away
in the glare of version upon version
******************************
Jake Berry
PHASEOSTROPHES
#1
5 blue legs
grown from the bark.
and waves of moss
pour through her eyes
anemones,
pulsing fossils in rays
nailed to rock
oracle bone
wept to choke
neon bleat te deum
sckek-idl-loam
schek-idl-loam :||
(repeat)
#2
paschal lamb glistens
stethescope blue
tin . Venus . lavender
lapse into hypervalic seizure
cool length
of worlds strung
through diaphanous wells or eons
randomly dispersed in
exquisitely decorated rooms
across an antique couch
lost in the stain
#3
tinsel ivory
deer thistle steel
roam is scales at rusting
lunation phase
ground to dust
latitudes
where Draco bolts
from twin graves
across the threshold
a covenant adultery baal
pissed to fission stigmata
wheat achings flood
#3b (mesopotamia)
-dorphin: prolog green
labial refradction barley weight
6 to measure &
each worker his
mettle enough to conspire
betray isotopic
fresh catilage wound these
pulleys failed
sediment: bone partial
upper plate, sinus vault
holy is to meat the bargain
#4
tithes in leather
law breaks an abhuman rite
inversions fixed to clay
spokes catherine dead elegance
abuse salivating tiers of
corpse & treacle
dollar-a-mug till 9
commands sloth his revenge
#5
flame hollow edge
clangs rack in pelvic cage,
sol mare ab-synthe
preterdeciduous winged
cloy mantle
the arguments' cynical buttress
shoals where reeking carp
soothes idolatry
miniscule teeth aloud
stale
dys
#6
ouranous spread violenly
the ledger of bullets detailed
ashen : extremities
ovary : (deletion)
imaging pox and rat shale
wagon leaved
with Cypress Osiris scattered
full-throttle drivetrain mollusk
"her performance as pigeon hingedx
(a murmuring flight)
#7 (anticon)
for Jim Leftwich
future lapsed into Lethe
against dry swollen
legs ache for no reason
movements toward naming
designating "that which"
some non-particular invoked
from hole, vowel
Scarab
sun infinitude
So why designate-define?
The chisel is toy to
ejaculate web
#7b
Marium thrust her large hands
into her pockets
found the match
till clumsily borne jackyls
pose antiquities
nitrate plow shifter
Ovid screwed the badger royal
& found Black Sea
in teapcup, food processor,
distillery heaved
the vitals into his lap