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Solitude of lamé: of what shines what laughs doesn't cry but rather barely the mask that laughs it [cried cried in the laughed what attached to the steed, what fastened to the hook of the rope: the écuyére: horsetamer who yokes plumes to her hair pinned to what swings: to what strings decoys highwires cages animals gilded to the hoops attached to the rings halos: hoops the fattest woman, the bearded lady: the strongest: the one caught in the air in delirium in the bubble of delirium the magician in two parts: that which cut in two disappears and that which festooned with jack-knives bleeds from the hear: that which vibrates without a net, that which disappears
in mirrors you cross galleries with handmirrors galleries, glassy, of glass and slime, vista of "virile" virtuosity, a glassiness of rounded cape, or "caped": so, because if in that abyss, or alley--he pushes down--the neck of the girl-- because if that fishneck, curved under that radiance, swims, mirror being born, jade and glass? he takes it, and in that crossing, of the lamé radiance, I engrave: it cuts the circle, gives an "ending." and if the shining stroll is used, signals of green canvas --for a green hanged man--, to go ahead, why not? if that slipping, that hanging expanded? and in the circle, of that fish-tale, a detail appears in "madder"? overtattooed in the decollete', dredges the breast; of the one who brands: cut glass, luminous, infected sliver, whose sticking plaster, in the alcohol of those gazes that gush, in the coolness of that glaze, or only the incense of that smoke penetrates the meat of the neck, marks the "small roads" of that gallows, as if that head, to rolll, by starched, stiff petticoats, took it scorched. rhymed its asperity of live furs, with that "brown" stole with which she covered her shoulders? --hiding that hairiness and the batrachian of that weakening, doesn't it lead to the alligator's paws, stagnant, or arranged in a certain inertia? . . . but that which scratches, yes. penetrates, and will not shut up. not necessarily, [since already at the edge of those little swimming pools in Sarmiento, [there's a mother that's drowning, and another that's stripping naked, on the palier, in front of some officials it's that mother and that absence. the scene, framed in crystal, provides the radiance of those paralytic spiders. That one, and perhaps the other. [because, in rolling, through those trembling passages, didn't she suffer the discomfort of those stays, and the suffocation of those buttocks, the weight of those tiaras, or pendants, or rings, already excessive? and that which is recharged, in that account, isn't it an increase, the profusion of jewelled straps, or the anger of a candle that hangs? perhaps heavy with heat? of which heaven is he speaking? oh panromances, oh tarnished relics of coral, oh rhinestones in a rut of rhyming . . . (degradée)
Tuyú
History, is it a language? Does this language have to do with the language of history or with the history of language/ where it stuttered/ Does it have to do with this verse? living tongues licking dead tongues tongues rotting like socks tongues, lingering, fungous this langauge of history/ which history? if the long history of the tongue isn't taken as a story They tell it in a galley: Miz Rudecinda didn't the riding gear sprinkle her soul? didn't the screamer bird scare itself? (Melted gauchos, with their cow tongues, with their clubs with their yokes and their silver coin belts melted gaucho: he digs his spurs into the--melted--back of the tongue, as if trapped in a rabbit warren A few kilometers from San Clemente, in the Tuyú is the tomb of Santos Vega, where the orcas come in and the surfers in their grass skirts, on the crystal waves Broken crystal, ornere orcas of history: they go to the harpponers with their hooks: they go where the deck-clearings cleave: where, melted, the gaucho takes out his jack-knife and disgraces himself: it was history, that disgrace! disgrace of lying in the Tuyuú, of a widespread lying The cannibals in that crystal harassed by rude waves; and you, in that lethargy of rigor mortis, don't you take it [lying down? Take crystalline, plumed crests?
Susana Cerdá
Don't Return . . .
I Oh, mo ther look ma ma there's more than we foresaw: the cupboards full of the walls overloaded with white the beds so clear the fabric so tightly stretched Don't return the gaze Look: The words are in surplus They're idle. II Right there fa ther We won it May it be sacred: the SHOUT Here! Do you hear how my ears how the chains groan the harvest is a cloud Hear The Sound of locusts --such darkenss! but whatever happens Their color is green. III Hear the sound --broken the-- Give give equally give your throne to the nobleman may they be united see now: "to the Noble of the South: Freedom!" And the freemen answer the Great: "To die or We swear welcome." IV Hey hear the adage I've written you It's rough draft Don't Don't return it to final copy V Thrown into the Red hot fire of the blacksmith. I'm still alive. He picks among the irons looking for his knife to put it into the fire to make it: a dagger. To break the broken chains to see the ties leaking the iron of this blood. Ferrous blood of iron, they say the man was made of iron. He who branded the Red Count his wounds. He wandered wandered lonely at ease they say in The Outskirts. VI There were weapons and tools, between which, therefore, They distinguished by usage. VII We won it, father. We won it father, or we will. Hadding had Having If it has Hah! How much it costs for the Splendor to shine.
Jorge Lépre
I FEEL OF NO FORCEPS / SIAMASSFORCEPS #1
S N A C C T A E E R S S N I E T N D H E R E L E W U S R S I I I O D I T C V U U V R E R E E I E F V O U N M L O F P G E O I P H N W C L O O T Y E A R F A G I I T L N N A H B A T L E L W I X O S N T M X M Y D E M I N E S S M T O T R R A U Y
"SIAMASSFORCEPS #2
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Susana Poujol
Dis / COVERIES
he bites the apple red watery with those little square child's fingernails discouraged pianist unexpected ruled leaves fall from him he leans far back more and more lost between his long dark hair very far the voice what a bunch of whores it says and the voice slips between the pubic hairs with my gentle persistent tongue licking and licking at emptiness
Untitled
--A mate, Pacheco. Yes, my Brigadier. --Ah. . .the country of apples . . . The water flows sweetly here . . . everything so green . . . --Ne u que'n . . . cou nt ry of a pples . . . Huidobro spoke of the country of the Ranqueles, [2] Brigadier . . . -- Aha. . .but here the sun comes down through the glens, they say . . . and the apples are poisoned. . . I don't know . . . it must be . . . the mountain gets angry with the intrusions . . . said the old man . . . --Some little apples . . . from the heart of the mountain . . . these Indian women with firm skin . . . no, Pacheco? Do you think the mountain will get angry, Brigadier? [2] A native tribe mostly exterminated in the 19th century.
Jorge Santiago Perednik
TOU BAVOU
. . . . . in the tunnels, infinite, intricate, from which one only carries to the dining room, green, it was and why do people become enamored of a mistake? 2 she was lying on a table, master and sir, green, she was naked surprised like a nun taken by god taken to task for loving god and loving intimately that he would never come (to be on the table, on her) to incite her to show herself strawberries with syrup and peaches, the taste of sugar in the peach [on a table of god tongue raising the forested mountain, the soft, strange shrubs [of its planet taken in given or venial, the fruits bitten, running with saliva covered learned the class of the that this is the order, it shall come to pass or it shall not come to pass: you are the only fruits that take pleasure while you die 3 you replied, stammering, let's not write each other any more and then (like in a soap opera) that you weren't going to write me any more, that I could write you [when i wanted let's sup/p/p/pose I'm d/did/dying that this steam didn't let you breathe well, see well and when you wanted to talk to me you c/ the syrup's waiting, cold, and it won't spread the Roman bath water's hot and waiting Buenos Aires, October 20th. My dear XXXX I haven't heard any responses from you and word something that XXXXXXme o/no/no/n/on the table/l/l/lies your body 4 it was. I would choose shurbs for the greenhouse. I would tear out the seeds [the fruit the flowers the leaves the branches naked like a statue of salt ahead with empty hand with the trunk between my hands reality they [disappeared I was thin king about those who were not the greenhouse shrubs rob themselves! I would sing to them but my god don't look behind I asked her. little sister your ? has been? it was. stop no one talked about dreams, the taste the smell of dreams, the echo of dreams i the and in the question of dog? counterecho bounces off the wall the dream on a table, green, naked 5 on cena. the table is served and the aroma indifferent. an aobject. the table is a female body. the supper is however rotted fruit dead gods green it was "so that not even the shadow of an excuse can interfere in the matter" served. on a table 6 naked, mistress and sir, green, you wanted it the light, blurred in the supine steam of the bath, it bothered [you frvalle, sylvalley, pinvalley you told me and suspended between the eyes the body the small drops scarcely allowed [thinking, not seeing the sliced peach that incites the eating of the fruit, the tongue [speaking the juice it releases, thick, so sweat, when the teeth sink in,showing the two wild strawberries on the pinnacle, those--ah! in the [receptacle, the emptiness in the diffusion of steam small sighs that stir small corpuscles, in growing intensity, in [increasing depth make yourself, accumulate, multiply, call yourself by name and the morning of the last day set and dawned this world that just I finished and I don't understand where it's [taking me valley I watch from above, suspended in this diminutive death it lacks existence you said, that the steam won't let me arrive 7 . . . . 8 . . . . 9 . . . . 10 they buried their dead seated in more or less the same position we were in, in the water with the small, trivial things they'd loved or enjoyed in life but it springs up and dies back alone and now and it dreams itself alone and dreams are idiotic we're together, naked, neither dead nor alive each dreaming our own useless story in the maternal bathtub, as alike as twins the heavens the sky and the earth. and the earth were emptiness and confusion
From The Shock of the Lenders FRAGMENTS 4 and 12
The fall: The new Science of the 18th century speaks of our home, its [perfidy, that it is "full of chaos because of individualism and sterili (oh Holy Church) and because [of a lack of respect Holy Chruch lil English girl Madonna mia I Saw you As a monster [with two back I saw you glancing back at the fall: Lucifer Adam The Roman Empire Newton's Apple the rabbit and Alice following Carlos Argentino Daneri and Jorge Luis Borges following capitalism and communism and Christophoro Columbus landing on the island of called by him Santo Domingo the birth of the New World the rebirth of the old world episode or stumbling block that histories [avoid so as not to fall into the fall: the only commandment alive or like sin You will honor your father and mother you will touch your The : they cast on earth and said Rest in peace the world factory doesn't rest "do not enter" "top secret" ("you'll fall anyway") patriarchs of the order and giants of chaos embrace in the name of three crazy elves hunch forward like old men and howl to break down the door Phoenix, Phoenix, why is virtue so run-down? like sages howl like children like a family tree of [without on the other hand expecting anything knowing that the void awaits them [without on the other hand possessing serene before the secretary who tells her secrets for a new secret smiling before offended office laughing in the Tower without qualms about the same illness the very illness that requires the construction of the do the door opening closed with a key the lie: a door plus an office plus a boss (they didn't appear on the sacred papyrus) the formula or genetic order: it all changes (except one thing (no it all changes (for that thing (no nothing changes (because of that ( three crazy elfves hunch forward like old men and howl to break down [the thing that they cast on earth and said Rest in peace
FRAGMENT 16
1 Every end is a beginning. Searches The engineer's arches built brick by brick treaon on treason looking [for what The mayor dressed as a peasant crossing the continent on horseback [looking for what Woman's pools, the hunger for depth, do they matter? 2 Each search pursues its end--and finishes before reaching it Unrelenting, unreachable searches. Lost arches, for example The crumbs that showed the path back disappeared. Birds 3 The strap falls. The bird takes flight. Where Don't pay attention to mummy. She drank too much. She writes mush. 4 Every persecution has an end: to make its beginning infinite; so The engineer reads Hegel "there's no depth just ignorance" and [approaches the abyss. Later The engineer denigrates "limitless emptiness": fear of limitless [ignorance, or his own emptiness Horror at perpetual beginning Each month is each day is each hour is each moment is Time past and present that which is and that which was Madness the invisible marks that return The impossible union of beginning and end The impossible family and its new records, its beautiful story, its (...) To break the record to crack the memory for good to cut The evanescent knots that impede the denoument (...) The persecution of 5 Every search makes its object invisible therefore pages and parrots and payments Every search seeks to find itself 6 the design of the stigma will be: an animal that eats what it vomits that smiles constantly that has a huge black bird on [its back 7 The prosecution of Pages and pigeons and payments Reality resists being described: a prohibition such that 8 Every end breaks the enchantment The twelve strokes sound They're at the door The engineer reads his family the sotry and suddenly flees: Partridges in pear trees. Did they live happily ever after? searches Every beginning is an end. The agonized end Of a story that doesn't want to finish
FRAGMENT 21
quarantine: isolate the contagious patients who'll believe in that trash? everyone kill the dogs in secret and let rabies justify everything illing in you its sickness words helped to believe in the unbelievable helped Argentina who? pockets full of blookd and money hands stained with another's: that blocks or cuts off the mothers is another speeled with yoo or ho? with--you know. (...) the dogs bark because they believe the wolves howl because they desire the neighbors crowd together flocking to see the a question what does fuck mean? one answers happiness another better not ask lady some of the neighbors saw the incident: it was inconvenient: [they forgot it three times in the fox's metaphysics the chicken comes before the egg the hyena's laugh because they smell their teeth announce the [ethics of the great hygiene happiness lady may the world end quickly and even if the world doesn't end fuck lady, happiness anyway
FRAGMENT 33
(From "Diary of the Flight") Thursday the twenty-fourth I have to keep going I can't keep going I found a dead horse in the tub (in the bath) the horse gets up the quitable moment in which he leaves me (the firm moment in which) Friday the twenty-fifth I have to keep going (I can keep going) a slow trot: maybe the path is near they've already made it somehow I get to the threshold onto my story (maybe I'm arriving at my story) Saturday the twenty-seventh I'd be surprised if it opened
FRAGMENT 35
(from "Diary of the Flight") my interrogators know more than I yes, everything seems foreign virginal a worthless fable (...) I wish the lantern in the night showed the broken hymen of the priestess that the vagina opened in flower that there were no trap that the image were the delay a fall one could live in (...) the questions close me confuse I can't I wish or even to pronounce the word end
RIF/T: An Electronic Space for Poetry, Prose, and Poetics
Editors: Kenneth Sherwood and Loss Pequeño Glazier
ISSN#: 1070-0072
Version 4.1 Spring 1995
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