Steve Dalachinsky

visage do(o)rma(n)t

1:12
bit green crowd  red bit crowd
9:10 passing into 8:5-0
rowing beyond roof  you are bit win el armie yufself
it is screaming this tempt of pointed light     toned-down tragedy

to expand the boundaries yet keep the story short
to confine the boundaries yet tell an expansive tale
to be confined w/in the boundaries of the story
          &  tell us nothing new
                           i repeat bit the apple
     he gave her                                            reversal is technique

it can appear to float                tho it is sinking
                                     we look so much alike why bother to remember
                                      if we try too hard memory will turn to relic
relic to mud      mud to myth     
                                    i/deal     it can appear to sink while it is floating
                                                  buoyed by memory
                                                  fueled by myth
                                                  weighted by relic
                                                  buried by mud
sand turned pen in sula                                                   homecoming    gone
flower of birth                                                     the same man we are
                      it can appear to float while sinking  
shiny lights outside the window                 blackboard revealing insides
                                 outside the                 window  
strings of the oud            relic    ////    myth  /////   memory
a sinking feeling that makes one float
(un) familiar    melodies         a round stick  (tree)  where the ancestors hang
         the mingling of blood      the mingling of blood
                                           dark spot of possibilities  /  where the ancestors hang

tonight the moon hangs over you like a lost lamb   / 10-10 has passed 9:50
Legend is not as it seems     blood mingles    I become Everything
                           uncharted territory                 road to ruin
the same face on different sides               the same body
the dead man’s float           in a flash flood
           reducing my system to sewage to memory to relic to mud  to myth

                                 legend         becomes     voyage
                                   a voyage that takes so long



     nyc  12/4/04     lotus  nuband/workman  angelopolis/godard



A ROUND

1.

could one have ever imagined what ROUND would become 
how what was just circumstance became significance    
could one have foreseen the importance of ROUND?
head  halo half circle  pom-poms 
hookups   O’s     always Oh’s
this circumference dissected   usual adjacent ornaments 
how flat we actually believed things were 
how round they’ve become… when did they become? 
i ask myself that (as i look around)
who drew the first circle? 

there are seven stations of the cross 
a tear in the fabric is round 
was it deliberate?
a timeworn shroud 
could’ve been ornament once 
a marker now eaten away by religion’s 
hands are full 
there are invisible wounds 
within the fabric of all things at times 
these wounds are deep  
angular  straight  curved  ROUND 
incomplete  like this poem…

she wants naught of me but to live & die 
in peace     two things she will never have

2.   (thru muhal richard abrams)

said something about song sparrow 
like a bird sound 
singing songs both relevant 
& not
fugues & other forms of music 
reduced thru glyphs 

i feel like a stranger 
an Interloper
wherever i go   

said now one artist has a different way of crafting one’s art from
another despite what the two have in common as intellectuals 
those that play along & those that play within 
& conversation continued…
said that
if i deny any part of myself i deny the truth said that
rule: we’re gonna start
you’re gonna hit
so listen

3.

activate transition 
@ any cost  /  bellicose penta
up coastal gentric ice a dope-cration
which if were pa list i clost 
stages of gyro
i’m nonplussed aggravation  ear / car
said yud help a buddy fly 
but the papers down to the one more 
final line algae come & request 
blush you away
here’s to ravish & time’s glow
after toward univoice – box
sleep feed sex & stinky poop
& unheated / heeded red sauce
puncture
here’s to artificial inebriants
lack & damning
of concern!

4. (thru cecelia vicuna)

disappearance of cloud possibilities 
hate beginnings
threads that lead to nowhere 
drawing threads 
the emptiness between water
& Self.

after the bomb a young escapee 
remembering nothing
forgetting nothing 
being nothing
the consequence of 
everything
as the horizon
there is no need to find
the TOP
be it ROUND or flat
writing the poem is never 
enough being the poem    
never enough
living the poem   is almost…
not each other
but each molecule 
consider & teach 
the thing

how the world coming to 
an end
can be a refuge
intense   powerful
against the lover of books
mice gnawing the pages
rather than the tongue / thread / way 
TAO >
transformation / removal of tissues
shaman’s words
women    widowers   
obedience servants    
dead mentors
umbilical dollars
itself 2 ways
ASYLUM.

     nyc  1/18 & 2/18 

Poet/collagist Steve Dalachinsky was born in Brooklyn after the last big war and has managed to survive lots of little wars. His book The Final Nite (Ugly Duckling Presse) won the PEN Oakland National Book Award. His most recent books are Fools Gold (2014 feral press), a superintendent's eyes (revised and expanded 2013 - unbearable/ autonomedia), flying home, a collaboration with German visual artist Sig Bang Schmidt (Paris Lit Up Press 2015), The Invisible Ray, with artwork by Shalom Neuman, from Overpass Press, "5-COLOR ASSORTMENT" Chameleon Too from Redfox Press, and FROZEN HEATWAVE with Yuko Otomo, from Luna Bisonte Prods. His latest cd is The Fallout of Dreams with Dave Liebman and Richie Beirach (Roguart 2014). His poem “Particle Fever” was nominated for a 2015 Pushcart Prize.
 
 
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