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W e M a g a z i n e I s s u e 1 7
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Editors: Chris Funkhouser, Belle Gironda, Ben Henry, Katie
Yates (Albany); Angela Coon, Eric Curkendall (Bay Area); Jay
Curkendall, Roddy Potter (New York City); Stephen Cope, James
Garrison, Greg Keith (Santa Cruz)
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Please reproduce this document across cyberspace
as you see fit. We look forward to receiving comments,
questions, complaints or poetry from anyone.
Please inform the editors c/o cf2785@albnyvms.bitnet
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W e M a g a z i n e I s s u e 1 7 , V o l u m e 1
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THE POETRY HOLE
People have poem holes in the tops of their heads. This
comes as a surprise to many people.
If you close your mouth and hold your nostrils, and
blow, you will feel the pressure against the tops of your heads.
In this way people are like whales.
Some times small sounds are emitted from these holes.
In most people, it is whimpering and sniddering--sounds that
one would dare make only when alone and perhaps not even
then; disturbing sounds, not representations but the sounds of
the emotions themselves--the sound of loneliness, the sound of
the fear of death, the sound of horniness....
The hole may also emit sounds when one is with a
rambunctious crowd of happy people having fun, but they are
quiet sounds and hard to hear.
Poets cultivate this pressure until the thin membrane
covering the poem hole ruptures and begins to emit the high
whining shounds of the self. These are poems. These learn to
modulate the sounds, so they do close order drills, in perfect
step, like a marching band or a troop of tap dancers.
Most people go to some lengths not to hear them: watch
television, listen to loud music. Above all they interpret the
sounds. If the poet writes I am happy happy happy, we know
this is not true, and we have developed a large, well-paid class
of professional critics whose task is to interpret the poets'
writings,so we will know that the letters in "happy, happy,
happy" must be rearranged as ppphay, pppyahyah, ppphay,
pppyahyah--the saddest and most sniddering syllables in the
language.
Two parties have developed around this discovery: one
believes that people have always had poetry holes; the other
believes that they developed recently in human history,
perhaps as recently as the 17th century.
I am inclined to think it has always been there. The
report of poetry is consistent: people are miserable, their girl
friends or boy friends are mean to them, they no sooner learn
how to get along in life than they start becoming ugly and tired,
then they die.
It is now known that the poetry hole can be closed with a
simple surgical procedure. It has proven effective and
permanent; it is highly recommended.
Don Byrd
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W e M a g a z i n e I s s u e 1 7 , V o l u m e 2
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Discontinuous Autoharp
for Rebby Sharp
Oh how you
Undo me raspberry phosphate
Raptors from the rafters call me
Rhapsody in gumball kazoo
Consonantal harmonies adrift
Lazeeboy rafts Richmondesque
Gape odalisque refigures teething
Mortals at last outlined
The farthest South Jasper can imagine
A gay plum bun, a purplish heard
I want your lyric sheets
Here's the $2.45 plus postage
Falling down on the Job
Quietly elevating babies
Hymn Sings amongst the decay
Racoonbats with rabies
Tar buckets filled with guess what
kind of snake like autocthonic scales
Techtonic plates shift under Chris
My friend and fresh met frisker
Too tiny for words much less
song where does poetry belong
Everywhere or in this little box
A gentle Rod spoils no child
Sweet fathers I know and mothering
Blue books and goddard girls slighter
Mercies figure in my mouth
Surprising metallic retail Joan
shows up among the unknown
Uncle in grey turt looks spiff
No spliffs but tamales fille
Bear reads wine and bows for
mercy missed it Jasper says it
Sister then in cat favor
deliberately shys from meaning
Clearly stanzas must stand for
transfers sevens eights or song
I've always been a visitor where's
my absentee ballet?
Quilting is not one of the skills
A longer line might consist of
Catskill association at best Beth
balls the jack and the salty dog rags
No more slavery above the trembling bed
A robin red breast in a cage
While visions of sugar plums dance in our head
Puts all of heaven in a rage
Despite clinging peaches
The south maintains its sticky hold
As that moss dies away
A new Kudzu emerges
In the water this time
Lee Ann Brown
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W e M a g a z i n e I s s u e 1 7 , V o l u m e 3
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The beginning says Rabies the end says Rage
these words are related like Yewtree and If
across the separations we endow with water
this is a staircase leading to the static
I listened to all night from Cinicinatti
thinking it godly on the warm brown radio
when a high mass from Boston answered the night
reasoning It is Christmas the life around us
congests with literal-mindedness
and all these people we see hurrying in the street
rain or no rain are in fact sinister translators
searching for some primal certainty
they can market as an Equivalent ohime there are no
equals signs built into this svelte cosmos
no room for indentities in this joyous vast.
Robert Kelly
answering the quick thought of Lee Ann Brown, hello.
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W e M a g a z i n e I s s u e 1 7 , V o l u m e 4
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Hunger is a signifying system:
the ground
and precondition
of knowledge of itself.
Outside of hunger
hunger can't mean.
Inside of hunger
the movement of the body is not desire
but hunger
re produces itself.
The body is a sign
disappearing into hunger.
Outside of hunger
the questions about freedom
could have to do with art
or driving in New Jersey.
Inside of hunger
there are no questions about freedom.
Hunger answers itself with the body
the body answers itself with the body
the answer is hunger.
Inside of hunger
the silence stands for a scream.
Outside of hunger
silence stands for silence.
Belle Gironda
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W e M a g a z i n e I s s u e 1 7 , V o l u m e 5
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How to Compose
Stay away from musical instruments. Write
anything as long as you can hear it inside.
Mary had a little lamb. Practise hearing this
until it replaces internal monolog at all hours of
the day and night. Subject it to augmentation,
diminution, inversion, retrograde, series. Break
it into pieces, hear it major and minor. Remember
continuous variation is the natural state of the mind.
When you can hear it run through variation after
variation without interruption forget it. The ear is
ready. Listen to the body. When you hear 13 breaths
per 72 heart beats the chaos of aural data falls into
writable patterns. This is the voice of the muse.
Steven Taylor
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W e M a g a z i n e I s s u e 1 7 , V o l u m e 6
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not thinking matters under smoothness
Stacey Sollfrey
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W e M a g a z i n e I s s u e 1 7 , V o l u m e 7
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UNA CARTA DE AMOR
Todo lo que de vos quisiera
es tan poco en el fondo
porque en el fondo es todo
como un perro que pasa, una colina,
esas cosas de nada, cotidianas,
espiga y cabellera y dos terrones,
el olor de tu cuerpo,
lo que decis de cualquier cosa,
conmigo o contra mia,
todo eso que es tan poco
yo lo quiero de vos porque te qiero.
Que mires mas alla de mi,
que me ames con violenta prescindencia
del manana, que el grito
de tu entrega se estrelle
en la cara de un jefe de oficina,
y que el placer que juntos inventamos
sea otro signo de la libertad.
Julio Cortazar
A LOVE LETTER
Everything I'd want from you
is finally so little
because finally it's everything
like a dog going by, or a hill,
those meaningless things, mundane,
wheat spike and long hair and two clods of earth,
the smell of your body,
whatever you say about anything,
with or against me,
all that which is so little
I want from you because I want you.
May you look beyond me,
may you love me with violent disregard
for tomorrow, let the cry
of your coming explode
in the boss's face in some office,
and let the pleasure we invent together
be one more sign of freedom.
translated by Stephen Kessler
first publication in English
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W e M a g a z i n e I s s u e 1 7 , V o l u m e 8
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When he gets depressed
he likes to sit around the house
and clean his guns.
He's got a .45
she shines like the sun.
She'll blind an officer of the law
before the first round
enters the chamber.
Yeah.
Take
the man down.
Take
the man down.
Take
the man down.
Charlie Mehrhoff
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W e M a g a z i n e I s s u e 1 7 , V o l u m e 9
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Ode to a Dead Tree
Locust clouds o' car alarm angels
drag strips 'n tearin' its petals
flutter stunned brushed aside
into a branch topplin' out a blobber
o' bastard smeared oil across the dirt
almost bloodied in its kackin'
clanks drained into duck chalks
gooed root of a wander
this tree pulled itself dynabrite
ivy red visions o' smells
when i drowsed neath its bows
its memories dug up its colors
'n horn tangles of my banjo hair
boiled all round about it
florescing encrusted
many beautifull parasites themselves
withered by all sorts of jewells
winkin' in codes at extinction
blinkin' back galactic insecticides o'
bizarre liquors enrichin' the barshling
maw twigs that moo death quills
of the leaveless pecked hen jostled
plover thatch mars bowled
from a stratum of eye sand
where still nestle families
o' tiny nocturnal moons
their young emerge uncrinklin'
their buckles,"Good Moanin'."
to the stars at midnight.
Roast this damned book!
Hurl this damned terminal
have mercy on the poor tree!
'n screw yer eyebulbs
into the nests of
yer breath sockettes 'n Memory
stretchin' 'n strewlin' cloths
of the bilge blatherins
'round trees in the ear
that blimp up their crust flowers o' pestery
that wig snarl the light shrubbering
shatterers o' the eyes o' nails
that flesher 'n thresh the arms
'n wolf torn charts of rotten life.
It jettisons boulders from tree hell
from the eternall eye of pools
where plucked him his he floppets
to hurl he him away
as a butterfly through milk caverns
of a smog monster's bone
millofferin' to a slobster o' cuffles
flubbin' the moldy strings
strummin' a moggled bluckle
like grisly batz crunch up at a rubber o' skies.
Sub-nests o' pooch nubs
flopperin' nest fins hunker'd down in
flunk mills o' drabbin' clomps
eat their mind apples off
drunk on sun tan lotion
lasherin' with pullets on the branchin' tiers.
coilin' trains o' konked funks
duh duh the factual tautological
into whirly jellies o' book holes
quacked out in strewlins' o' gardenin' mudz
tonguin' suns of the beast
in glam junglins o' crabs
hockerin' and rackety poety repeeyoubluckuhs o' dumplin' kickery
their hog blob humpettes
weavin' wrecks under the tossled mopules
at the great waddled baggering of the ruptured blue
unfold the fingerling masklettes
who'd once candied and pumped
all the great paintins of the age
on a plum lozenge up Swiss Miss's nose
waterin' coffee with the bees
of her eyes buzzed out at a noise
which is why she's blind
butterfingers of 'er hands
nudge draculas off divin' boards
into a meanworld o' pretzles drivelling
jackled yackette mush bah bahs
muttled 'n twisted up in butts o'
Bach-o-licks janeing welsh
with a jowell eyed gem of ripening
flame fruit overhead
faintlettes endin' flowerin' in burrs
of branchin lexicons snarled wowin'
wang flop of its final fold
snot wrecked
washin' up on the land of God
where money is leaves that flunked.
Eric Curkendall
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W e M a g a z i n e I s s u e 1 7 , V o l u m e 10
No. 39
two cameras sitting by the view sitting next
to the view but forgetting the view and
photographing eachother instead two cameras
sitting by the view of eachother two cameras
open eachother up photographing eachother's
insides next to the view two hundred times
to you, two you you you you you two cameras
photographing then opening up and losing all
their pictures you have lost all your possessions
you have lost all your possesions you have
lost all your possessions you are your possessions
India Hixon
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
W e M a g a z i n e I s s u e 1 7 , V o l u m e 11
Inscription for a Sundial
before the before
Yeshe Tsogyel
(The female Buddha)
Made noon
From a lovesong
Tony D'Arpino
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
W e M a g a z i n e I s s u e 1 7 , V o l u m e 12
Book Three
had not the birth but certainly was groomed to it
tied-up night upon night to catch
hold.
could not & then would not
SPEAK
but had in mind
the closing of her hand
the clearing of weapons from her pockets for Spring
how could?
soft by moth lip - relief
surmise it this way.
"sensiate"
b
i
r
t
h
restrained as in handle
handle of a saw - slow, slowly
to be sure.
with more than curved intimacy
children stuck in the folds
nothing but leisure
nothing to change
curve
of
curves
rode to bedlam
in
archangel garb
god is a night owl
oil is the fire of paste me to a sprocket
double / inside dew
force - drag on
replica (made masque)
burnt:
olive:
errata
Katie Yates
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
W e M a g a z i n e I s s u e 1 7 , V o l u m e 13
ESSAY ON TRUTH & REPRESENTATION DECONSTRUCTED FROM THE LABEL OF
A JAR OF ELSENHAM'S VINTAGE ORANGE MARMALADE
for Jonathan Williams
"this product may not contain all or any of the items depicted"
Pierre Joris
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
W e M a g a z i n e I s s u e 1 7 * V o l u m e 1 4
The Constitutional Rye Convention
was held July 1st, 1874 in Omaha,
Nebraska. It consisted of the gov-
ernor + legislature + forty-five or
fifty (the records aren't precise) rye-
raisers from all over the state. They
were tired of wheat + corns' attempts
at making a new constitution. They
said the new one was supposed to be
developed around the rye seed. No
more talk about "ears" of corn.
The pure seed. The pure seed-teeth
of the bushel constitution. Wilson
Oot, from Rhumbach, said he wanted
people to understand how much rye
reflected the state's values: cold-
hardy, productive under the worst
possible conditions, a bit sour, hard
to get along with, but always there.
They said they'd put that in. They
liked that. It sounded good.
R. Kimm
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W e M a g a z i n e I s s u e 1 7 * V o l u m e 1 5
A Woman Tells the Truth About Her Body
Beth Beauteous. Her face is her fortress. These lines she designed.
Insists that this is beauty is. Smaller eyes in that lunar
moonface. Fine smile. Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet. Chocolate
kisses. She opens for the treat. An insatiable hunger precedes the
onset of blood.
Beth Bleeding. Creative juices. She gives birth to words, not
children. Beth control. Her body does not create life. Sex is not
simple. She can't tell where her cunt ends and where the rest of her
begins.
Beth Bareass. Embraces the mirror. She does not create her body.
She respects the imperfection. In this temple, artifice is
blasphemous.
Beth Beanbag. A woman's loyalty to her shape is misinterpreted. She
survives inside a body which counts against her. Her only revenge
is in loving what she has been taught to despise.
Beth Bounces. Braless. Her shape changes as she moves.
Beth Broadcasts. Freedom is contradictory. Deviation translates as
defiance. A banner you carry in your mind. Your body is another
kind of emblem. Service stripes around your eyes, part of the art.
Beth Borrus
W e M a g a z i n e I s s u e 1 7 * V o l u m e 1 6
ISLES OF FEAR
[Words and phrases were taken from Katherine Mayo's book,
ISLES OF FEAR: THE TRUTH ABOUT THE PHILIPINES, New York:
Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1925.]
I. POINT OF VIEW
Will you spare a moment
on the meat why how we. Not
to influence but once and again
to present.
We have not know what those voices stood for
that over 80% have worms which is simply
to present.
And yet. The mere journey
which is accurate and so being myself
free to go the mere
takes more time than most
can consecutively spare
on the meat why how we.
II. THE MARK OF THE BEAST
my fellow countrymen. As thankless
a job as a grave question. The Mark I mere
determined your island the question
a grave. Responsibility a small child wailing
that particularly struck a stretch
on the bare floor of the jail.
my fellow
a GRAVE
RESPONSIBILITY and a stretch
For example THE PLEA OF THE WOMEN
Average income of average family
of five persons per year 1924
III. GOD HELP THE POOR
a distinct race? so that almost
anybody's head might do.
Due to mingling and upon whom
the grip of money is a soul compliance
IV. THE SHEEP AND THE WOLVES: ONE DAY IT HAPPENED
simply a biological fact perched
like a toy of killing (quaint little figure)
but it would have been unfair
to expect him to develop
character for want of a cockfight
and rarely in that mental makeup
can scarcely compel
V. HABITS THEY HAVE
And I hammer at them simply
how to save how to raise chickens.
And to show them the need.
Yet in his vanity.
Out of pure defiance at the velocity indicated.
Not a shining righteous. Nor any of it.
VI. WHAT THEY SAY OF US
a remarkable magnanimous Mr. Taft.
We have not eaten dogs since although
in a sort of holy war we have been
very hungry
VII. BUT YES WE HAVE NO BANANAS
We repaired elaborately surveyed enlarged
framed amended imported reformed made
of Manila a pleasant almost clean. Meantime
which is simply to present
Accurate and so being myself a grave
question (ablaze with pity) calling soldiers and a-b-c
to teach and chloride of lime marched
with the marching flag.
Jean Vengua Gier
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W e M a g a z i n e I s s u e 1 7 * V o l u m e 1 7
he is the highest apple
on my tree
ripening to a bushelful:
drop, pretty one, drop
*******
until he sang
i didn't know my heart
had so many
doors
Nancy Dunlop
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
Stratagems
of light slicing
a hall into webs
of leaf between two
trees:
have come in oblique
leaps to a place,
stacked trick on trick
to reach it-
this solar tremor-
tap heat &
movable heart of
red wood.
Michael Weaver
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
from STANCE
another driven plot, however
sheltered
falls away, leaves
barren
concrete-
to be stood on, askew
between holes where
buildings
halls, now space where
opening
form from one's only
distance
Stephen Cope
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
When the owl comes down and sits on the top of the birth pole
The unremarked messenger sidles from behind Corona Borealis
Breathless with complaining. A human life is more important
Than anything. And it says it again. To language is to listen.
Robert Kelly
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W e M a g a z i n e I s s u e 1 7 * V o l u m e 1 8
HIGH-PERFORMANCE POETRY COMPUTING
"Most Host
newcomers of neophytes
fail are incompetent
to realize in the vision thing.
just A deluge
how much if immaterial
information knowledgeware
can be packed is in constant flux
into a time is of the essence
30-second the essence is a gopher
animation the soul has sunk deep
segment" into the spine.
[High [Low
Performance Performance
Computing Living
Review Preview
March April
1993] 1993]
Joachim Frank
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We Magazine Issue 17