JUXTA/ELECTRONIC 12

 Editors:  Ken Harris, Jim Leftwich

 Poets:  Charles Ardinger, Chris Daniels, Peter Ganick, Cheryl Burket,
             Theo Lorenc, John M. Bennett, Dan Raphael, Tom Taylor
 


 |||||||||||||||||||||||||
 
 PETER GANICK
 
 from SONNET WHAT
 
 what lost a balmy name
 resumes an attachment
 that coded inputs release
 as favored intensity
 
 foreign nomenclatures with plastic
 resonation from pleasure
 nothing less than those few whose
 plasma overturns new music
 
 presences formed in the landscape
 such event an evident form with the one
 spatial impression of defined time
 
 after all that workmanship
 no speech is necessary for rappers
 to go downtown on some fleeting reality
 
 |||||
 
 CHERYL BURKET
 
 VACANCY
 
 Walking down the town.  A dead voice
 staring out from under a girl's skirt.
 Fireflies congregate by.  Haze over my
 memories.  Coming back with larger
 versions of what had been before the.
 Just such a thing as untitled.  Left
 town before they took away.  All my
 spells.
 
 |||||
 
 THEO LORENC
 
 AMERICAN BLEND
 
 Since the woodland is now a Baudelairean sludge of
 random propositions and the unchecked domination
 of the species 'glory-of-underpass' does not threaten,
 rather includes itself in, the alcoholic twilights
 of certain identifiable factors tending towards our
 wanky porcelain, it is commendable in those who
 seek to transcribe the exhaust-roar naivety and all-
 too-simple Lamarckianism of billboard kamikaze,
 or at least a nebulous poignance of accent.
 
 |||||
 
 PETER GANICK
 
 from SONNET WHAT
 
 now as nothing is expected of you
 rules display agreeable tones
 called twelves and sevens for at
 once recreation curls destination
 
 previous entrapment from perfect lies
 tether down the ferment
 understood as fabulous unit roles
 a severity would define as notice
 
 reports invert collars that simplicity
 careens with through isolation and a
 message of coincidence in hotel rooms
 
 occupied laborers whose
 primacy regulates obedience into
 a smaller derision by water by land
 
 |||||
 
 CHARLES ARDINGER
 
 I'LL BE HOME LATE
 
 He wrapped his fist around the doorknob, turned:  nothing.  Funny:  he
 never locked the door, but fumbled for a key in the rubble in his pocket
 while the big empty night buzzed around him.  Key found and forced into
 narrow hole and turned:  nothing.  Then all the gestures he learned from
 old movies:  rattle key, shake doorknob, pound with fist at eye level,
 et cetera until he got tired.  Unexpected as a ghost in your bed a spark
 leapt across a synapse in his head to light the fuse to reach the amateur
 time bomb (alarm clock, two big sausages of dynamite) buried there, which
 bellowed:  YOU FOOL.  YOU LEFT YEARS AGO.  Walked away blinking like a
 pigeon full of Alka-Seltzer, wondering where he actually lives.
 
 **
 
            GREATGRANDUNCLE EDGAR
                                  or
                    ANOTHER CRISIS
 
 And when the buildings turned their backs
           he cowered, alley-ridden, gawked
           at a big white future stretched before him
 --                                                                    him
                  in bed attached
                  with strips of canvas to its guardrails;
 him in the room hearing only his breath;
                 him among furniture
                                                   -- & begged
 the hooded skeleton for its word.  It gave none.
 
 **
 
                          MINORITY
 
                          Barely heard.
                          Voice of termite.
                          Emaciated heir.
                          Garret-starved.
                          Burning right.
                          Margin scribbler.
                          Arctic purity.
                          Speaker to shadows.
                          Curdled prophecy.
                          Scarcely human.
 
 |||||
 
 PETER GANICK
 
 from SONNET WHAT
 
 capably organizing one two three situations
 for largely punitive manners cannot
 fuel thought or relationships
 wide as other information is scheduled
 
 reverse distances trammel
 the once thrown away flowchart
 a dense fabric of illusory life
 without the handshake of copied namesakes
 
 hammer a truth where oceans
 less culpable rehearse dimensions
 that create language and sound of such
 
 rope snake harmonies taught by swamis
 nearby handgrenades of opposing views
 narrowly miss the heading to space
 
 |||||
 
 JOHN M. BENNETT
 
 BRUISE or RESPIRATION
 
 (nails collision))  tap taps combine, I was sinking
 "vasto de agua" but my tummy boiled slid my face
 against that clear would nothing's wall, condensed
 release top flown matter flattened looked outside
 reflect was "all" I saw BRUISE or RESPIRATION sawn
 lastings lective pout looked I, "patterned" after,
 sketched my arms' blown reach ("condensed") all
 slouching in the glass's corner ("clean" not so
 "place") planed boils in my sleep's vague aguada
 clinking, worn tape ("aligned the boards"
 
 |||||
 
 THEO LORENC
 
 'The poems'
 
 Faded perfection of Austrian leverage, hopeful dog-eyes nighttime in sweated
 historical inferiors, jackboot suburb, only the literary groan-type resonance
 and (since
 vigils haven't called revised list superman into tenement aroma, it seems
 restorative
 unkempt apply) or even colours of Psalmist - that is, rebarbative homebrew
 strolling
 for exceptions, habitual occurrence "which proves" hardly desirable doorman
 inclined
 to cannibalism or directive, it hardly matters - of course its luminous
 positioned was
 punctuate in divorce, otherwise juxtapose the general schema and aeroplane
 deterioration would, abbreviated, tempestuous although dominant seventh
 perceived
 in spite des Willens, it's half a crossword simulation needing Vedic
 reshuffle and
 malice of bracketed number.
 
 |||||
 
 PETER GANICK
 
 from SONNET WHAT
 
 reasons for the wall of light a wall
 sound cannot fade for because
 the life of caroms their indelible wallop
 rides on turned skies and results
 
 gender flexibility as the risen diver
 comes full circuit for a whether or
 not situation always okays topmost
 renegades who barge in on veracity
 
 all data frozen in banana republics
 no hoorah that a scare has been resisted
 any other fluid would bemoan silence
 
 talk and the reconstitution of talk
 one wearing thin of result with
 responsibility growing thin early out
 
 |||||
 
 CHERYL BURKET
 
 TRUCKER
 
 Bob-tail, 18 wheeler.  Red grin & cowboy boots worn to the
 ground.  When he thinks of his heartbeat, he writes several 
 pieces into a landscape of black crickets passing the vines.
 Pulls jeans jacket tighter.  Because at the edge of things is
 instinct.  He wants to believe in a true horizon.  In the white
 geography of his truck map
 
                ----------
 
 Up in his cab headed into a background 20 hours West.
 Drives by backyards of white rope clothesline.  Vacant train
 tracks.  Wired animals &.  His sixth sense of their location &.
 Their road's prehistoric name.  Speeding under the bridge.
 The archway of invoked ghosts.  Heading into apparent
 horizon
 
                ----------
 
 Pulls off I-80.  He eats orange hibiscus flowers & waits for
 dusk.  For his animals to come out.  For their red eyes to
 come.  Black silhouette of the forest behind them.  A forest
 with small fires.  A place he can return to
 
 |||||
 
 CHRIS DANIELS
 
 THE SPHERE (autumn 1981)
 
 
 to the spirit of
 LEONARDO FIBONACCI
 and my dear friend
 DANIEL STRONGIN
 because they wrote it for me
 
 **************************************************
 
  _exulting in solitary equipoise_
 
 **************************************************
 
 and the winding up
 
 the way is all ways
 all works one work
 
 ****
 
 HEARD
 call it
 wind
 
 seen
 call it
 light
 
 tasted
 call it
 salt
 
 drown
 
 felt smelled
 call it
 rain
 mist
 
 drown
 making one
 or many
 of one
 unknowing
 
 ****
 
 PEARL NOT PRODUCT
 of mollusc
 or god goddess
 white or black
 this point
 _still point_
 holds galaxies
  sand in a goblet
 can't be spoken
 
 _word with no sound_
 
 metaphor simile
 _poor recourse_
 when speech
 fails song
  song
 without speech
 is neither poetry
 nor rhetoric
 
 call it
 death
    
 ****
 
 PROTEUS
 
  -- for andrew joron,
   15 years later
 
 beaked and shaggy
 clawed
 small he was
 scaled below the waist
 
 while seals
 thronged cringing
 we wrestled
 
 first no surprises
 what old books told
 he did
 
 fire and ice
 water and steam
 lizard bear atom
 
 but suddenly mantichora
 _which doth loathe its like_
 
 the woman
 the blinding child
 
 in a rivulet
 we rolled
 _fra banc to banc_
 
 he told
 
 it is gone
 
 forgetfulness
 the deepest evil
 
 ****
 
 WHITE NOISE SINGS IT
 
 i die before i finish
 
 no end to it
 
 act on it
 
 its stream 
 is too quick 
 for thought
 
 it stands
 still in view
 and you debating
 _tickle points of niceness_
 
 if it touched me now
 alone with four
 doorless walls
 and shuttered windows
 
 i could
 not help
 but sing
 
 ****
 
 DUMB
  senses know
 know them
  know
 
 _grain
  of sand
 palm
  of hand_
 
 an hour
 
 and not confuse knowledge
 gotten with knowledge
 given
 
 or eupepsia with love
 
 ****
 
 SPEND THE ODD DAY
 grinning
 
 an idiot
 uttering
 
 ****
 
 _QUESTIONS ALIVE
 become answers_
 
 O FEEL THE WINDING DOWN
 
 |||||
 
 DAN RAPHAEL
 
 trailer court     roof top     major arterial
 
 
 dark wood clamps open, dark town turned into itself
 on a lathe of traffic, turning around the vein
 of momentum, blood blue as asphalt
 surging with sludge against scarred, graffitied walls, 
 fluorescent paint in languages not invented yet, graphic languages 
 attempting to capture an image larger than thought--
 one can of spray paint is worth how many pictures, worth 6 months 
 in juvie, two years probation, a crew with decent houses 
 to hang in--mom works night shift
 or dad's in the garage with some pounders
 
 the trees seem closer tonight, tree pulses 
 like the vein in my wrist, my tongue
 dry as plywood, dry as half a joint
 of cheap mexican and a couple glugs
 of warm Old English. 
                          the street is curved
 like the top of a giant culvert, pockmarked
 from a diet of coke, doritos, corn dogs, 
 combustible birthday cakes, butane lighters 
 angry as hornets, angry as a drunk
 facing a beerless frij and an empty cigarette pack
 10 minutes after the corner market's closed
 
 the dancing flames of a dozen grease fires
 spontane from the scalp of a used car lot
 the mobile homes have circled like covered wagons
 firing coat hanger arrows tipped with used pampers
 to keep the kids away from the gravel, bottle shards, 
                 burbling rivulets of oil and antifreeze 
 stray dogs, possums, squirrels
 warily approach, unaware of the wildlife ranger
 red-eyed on the garage roof, trying to tell 
 what kind of car each pair of stars 
 are the headlights of, not wanting to hunt neighbors
 out of season, wanting to preserve the tree
 with so many names carved in it
 like the bible of a family never together
 more than waiting for a bus
 with the seats removed, the windows replaced with plywood
 no one wants to drive 
 through urine corroded streets, streets soft
 with bags and boxes, shiny with cans and glass teeth, 
 glass mountains challenging daredevil ants
 banished outdoors by territorial roaches
 cats juggle to earn chicken bones
 fried so deep they explode like forest fires
 with sudden blinding light clogging the nostrils
 like a time machine awakens memories 
 of other lives, other species
 lost in karmic elevators where up and down, where numbers
 are obscured in the blizzard of possibilities, a blizzard of
 low income housing where each dim hallway, each unpainted door 
 opens with a quick shoulder, shoulder a menagerie 
 of seeds   shells   bits of glass and metal
    a leaf for the body's periodic table
 past the simple gases of cloth and skin,
 the core metals of bone and organs
 to the rare earths of insights   awe   unity
 shattered by the quick halflifes of
 manmade relationships  ingredients   places
 no water flows or tree puts down roots
 
 |||||
 
 THOMAS LOWE TAYLOR
 
 THIS WOULD BE HERE
 
    Nor move beyond other times have swept your own signs along.  This
 is the neon spasm, or furthered hours my own song.  Here's my detail
 in your airs, go to later spires, but holding here is soon enough a
 name for you to call your own.  I'd sorted things out, but not
 belonged exactly into the roomer calms; a softer skin is held by
 sign and line your own airs removed.  But still, here is the newer
 life you called aside as yours, and met your own beloved in the
 shorter lights, these at  the anchor hours.
 
 *     What's not?  The pleasured hours remain at still remiss--as you
 are forward or headed in, these specific shots are still one after
 the other, but not reminded at all, nor held nor moved.  In the
 sailor hour, the sheeper spread reflects and holds aside.  This is
 the nomenclature of what was said.  The door.  The other moon, but
 still holding in the less internal hours, your own anchor another
 room aside and floundered out, spun aside and fortuned or sailed
 away.  A smooth surface resides here, and in other times, the
 also-ran holds his own reputation up for view, for vision, maybe.  A
 lamer spoke, a floundered pier.  Shots for one particular school or
 for a newer guise.
 
 *     In advance of what, you might ask.  Is it over or is it the
 tale told by the man who holds the check for dinner? Post-modern
 what?  That's what I ask.  In the folds of your cloak, it is always
 now, and you can't be post-now, it's rather like buying your future
 with the arms race, give me a break!  I shudder to ask, nor even to
 smell the roses in their own habitat.  It's eclat , you might say, in
 line with the tale told by another.  Maybe you're the idiot.  Well, I
 wouldn't wonder, with things the way that they are now, you know. 
 Shifted spasms, no epistemological bullshit stuffed or suffered--no,
 it's too darned associative or maybe reflective to be imagistic or
 even magnetic.  Why fool around with disclaimers? It's not too late
 to take a stand.  On something. 
 
 *    Morning. Move over, baby, you're lying across the entire bed. 
 Not too late now to watch the clock in the non-hours when you don't
 have to get up.  Just try not to remember, anything at all, sailing
 down the looner dunes in particular density, saying nothing at all
 and removing doubt from your own movie.  Techno shorts are sailed
 away, poetry a line into the future, or something like that.  Stay
 soft, I'll bring you to life.  No, it's a rotor claim shedding out
 the later calm.  In no space but here is the dragon laid  to rest in
 his otherness denied nor said from here to there, it's a fortune in
 the desert in unclaimed diamonds, but not too soon to say "This is
 not the movie I paid to see, you know, paid good money," or something
 like that.  Not prose, exactly.  Nor voices in the gloom.  It's the
 free fall from one room to another that spells the cosmic fruit to
 fall uncoincided in the temple of your own lobes, and here's some
 real shit.
 
 *    Flux betide, a foam, a cancellation or remiss strutter--she's
 aloft and flying, here you are your own doom, flooding sense with
 dotted light and flame.  I'm a doubt, you're the sky.
 
 ******************** 
 
 * This would be here, or not.  I'm a spasm and not tolled nor shaled
 cliff to say you are the one in between me and darker hours we won't
 mention again.  Nor death nor calm deliberation stills the motive in
 your own light, and as you are called ahead into your own life, you
 might get off your ass and try a little courage or experimentation,
 not just the cool revival of dusk in its own sentiments.  That's far
 too removed, you might say, to be considered beyond something to
 just, uh, spend your time on.  On. 
 
 * Not a sharp line.  Here is the skiller realm, but shorted outlines
 are slow or fast, according to nothing.  Pure consciousness in its
 descriptions would bely prose its familiarity, its willingness to
 discontent in the pose of accuracy, its familial destiny or posture.
 They knock the giants off the map and go on into the world serious.
 Hear the other hours say "Now is the time!" and utter the wooden
 screams of the people on your front porch, still wearing polyester
 suits, moonies of the spiritual fold, collecting quarters into silver
 bags and heaving your implosions into the other sphere with measured
 gestures, the rehearsed implications of the drone, the robotic folder
 of shirts at the laundry; but here's your friend in spine, the latter
 in her folded mists....
 
 *     The non-bind music floats your anchored hours into the mental
 space of light itself. It's a good day for saying before you speak at
 all, the mooner mists are good enough for me, but not no dew on the
 flasks of the never moon.  A darkened sky, but still your eyes ahead
 of me, sailing into the ether darke, a flooder in her songs and
 tales, moving me more deeply into what we share between us.  I've no
 more data than that, but you hold aside for more, always asking for
 more, as if there were.
 
 *     Nowhere calls the day aside or outer. It is still now, not
 post-now.  You're not that smart, nor sensitive, I might add. But
 let's not argue. You spoke slowly or not at all.  It was cold, but I
 don't remember. Not too far along the way, there was an obstruction,
 a pinnacle of undiscovered light or density, not not even a concept. 
 An alteration, perhaps.  But not some single thing you might spell
 out like astrology, or dust.  I'm not going on with this anymore, you
 can tell that.
 
 *     It's a spasm or a doubt, either.  What's syntax, even, but a
 measure of thought performing its specific gravity, like style. 
 Flash and funk, you say, shrugging it off, but give it a try.
 Chicken?  An attitude or love's own shore, faulting your own
 penetrations of the lighted sphere without sensation or pity.  Or
 criticism.  It's not the mind you manner, but the seance of the
 thing itself, looming out of the dark you forgot to describe, waiting
 for a guy in a coffee shop for a paint job you don't really want to
 do in the first place, you just want to see what the old guy came up
 with for, uh, work.  I'm not here, just pretending.  It's my time and
 I'll do with it what I want. 
 
 *     It's shore and fault no other in the dusk, a simpler hour
 describes the hours between us. Light fills the room, in your own
 shapes made simple, made against the shore and fault itself again,
 leaning out into the lines you said describe will or its alien
 friend, love in the midst of plenty, singing against the tune for all
 it's worth, shaling and spinning....
 
 
 
 
 *************** 
 
 SONNET WHAT, by Peter Ganick, is available from Marshall Creek Press,
 Matt Hill, editor, P. O. Box 305, Ben Lomond, CA  95005