Alpha Betty's Chronicles

able affadavit agent appearance          astroturf br    eath churn          crank effort figure      fink gin        granted heave    lichened ligature loathe      market model ontario oust outta         piazza pus scenario seńorita since      sine toe va          riety

1        Anxious big      hair on the back cover photo of           Marjorie    Perloff's Radical Artifice.

2      Art            Exhibiti        on: "The Essay on William's" including    rubber breast        s hanging from the wall; fresh          apples imported from upstate Ne          w York daily;            a dadaist nailed-together junk construct to          illustrate materiality of one of his            poems; "Nud    e Descending a Staircase" with recording            of just the r          ight kind of laughter (Armory        Show); snotty   looking French artists perambulating    througho        ut the gallery, indifferent;          a sparrow smashed agai  nst the floor.

3        Being            a lover of punctuation, and such.         /        Em        /

4          Benny    wanted smoking, Theodore not. And the    cadets       wanted nothing but rough housing,          and a res        erved space upon the couch.

5      Bull!    I threw the           clock a- gainst        the wall, it's l          ying, it's cold.            Just inhuman. Reducing my gre    en house          issue, I'm opening up wide     into    the field, I'm no lon- ger      sleeping. I'm off       to work.

6            Chapter    on reading an academic t  ext on the "Snoopy Dog."

7      Chinese guy who writes, with t          he          other staff, obscene things on the receipts          at the r    estaurant in Chinese to this customers.        "They admire him for his   learning..."            Paragraph of stalled sentences.      Guy who app        roaches dogs on the streets as they are        inspecting park  ing meters and            trees, etc., and encourages the  m with their            selection. She wasn't able to b        e proud of          her son's knowledge, because, when he finally        dis      played it, in a large novel about Korea,      family           relations, how it was,    he got it all wrong. "He was    an Ameri    can, that's all, which spoiled him." Hypogl        ycemia,    always humbling. Not a good Jesuit,            he had p    lain prose (his Latin clipboard            left at home). Part about standi        ng up for            the mushy poetry of the New Yorker and       Poetry,            "There isn't a line in all of your        Pynchon as pure as that - why isn't    it good enough to just re    cord anymore?"

8      Circle,    square, possib    le, a passage        - search exhaustive, exhumes          no fossilized alembic, alchemist      forte.

9      Gratuitous sex and          violence, plenty of it.

10      He          tried           to analyze her love of him through his love            of       another.            He tried to make        a stir fry with cheese     - he thought        it would melt on the top.

11                     He,          who felt it such a bother to add any          element to his morn    ing ablutions, or to      start using contact lens  es, now found himself pricking      himself with       needles and lancets eight      or more times a day.

12            HE      RBAL QUICKIE        Strange, this night that (organs            splashing away) protects the            mind, dark            with elegant burgundies,      grays (the cigarette agrees,               challenging the cold day) as it floats, ever secret      ly      towards the more challenging way (    struggling,        ever decently).

13        I'm always    afr  aid of such confidence.

14      I Don't            Have Any Paper So Swallow   the Wafer and          Shut Up

15      I suppose I will forget.      Bu      t once I forget, I won't really care.

16        I won't speak i    ll of other    people. Their silence obsesses          me. breakhavo  c wunch    hazingritual strap       counter          standarddemise            logarithm    Sort of a soporfiliac grante        d,        snitching on the wonder boy    lasts   as long as fratricide as a debatable go    currency.        You have no allies, and the doctors          are s      ick of you.

17            I'm a mess without    my, my Guatemalan gi        rl (sung to "China girl")               I'm awas      h with spurious    igloos (rains crashing down, worm            muck unrav    eling my sensitive tissues, and I      take all rhymes as t      hey come), puttering until nascence        lifts to an argot these c  ontraptions,      egg boilers, egg peelers,      egg eaters, d        own ramps of twisted coat hangers,            dropped on a plat      e. I've fake turbines (or investments          in them). Struggles t    hat protract asphyxiation (collegio,    in t    he Latin, or just drop the n from        asphyxiation, worse    ning the verse until cramped enjambment          pipes in with cl    amors from the infant's back room,        the monks, maids and pro  jections),            keeping labor stifled in baroqu    e misinformation.            That' s all it takes, indecision, dist    raction.    Walking, I chance upon a daffodilly,            "remark     the pregnant daffodilly," in its crowd        of         jewels, in its creeds of passions,          in it        s borrowed lake. I am going        to do the laundry, and m    eet a Polish poetess, reading      the latest Nobel     laureate, a populist with a history,            and she will remark   that I don't understand, no    and should probably re          ad Ruskin forsaking          my Homi Babha, and also my William Carlos          W          illiams. I will reply: "But    I am in almost total agreement      !        I have just chanced upon a          daffodilly! This re    cent exhibition      of Mark Tansey's graphic fill      er,      it's like a shot in the arm of the    avant-garde!   and so I am returning to ill-considered      origins." 'Then I will re    turn home    and take stock of the issues, and           know before    I begin that I have probably betrayed myself.

18      It appeared July 32, 1995

19            It rains                  - the crops wither.

20            It rains        - the stopped watch shivers,           makes a severed          justice from the steamin  g ham, the frothing    hens turning tabloid into stereo wings        of j      ustice.

21      Light: doesn't wanna      learn LANGUAGES any- mo      re, but computerspeak            that's easy, crazy.      There is no poem,            but the room for a poem.

22    The soi    l    meets their distress.

23            Miss Prison.

24            My eye         curries the otherwise pure meat.

25            Never        so sure: there i      s an entire Saturday stretched,    metaphysically, like a lax mu          scle, before him..            not like the ocean that hides a contin      ent, rather,      a tongue that is willing for speech, exposed,                vulnerable, out of its cavernous socket a  nd      a little disgusting. Shut up the dogs in          the ba    ck of the building, tether them, hide them      in your living ro    om, on the television,          SHUT THEM UP. So then the wee    kend          can achieve its closure, archive        its hilarity.. a beach     ball, heavy, primary.    He had attempted to       learn the name of      the Loyalist, who cursing, lays a we        ighted            eye on the bodega, and doesn't mind                    his passage of time in the sweltering heat,        reading bad         Homer translations..            he portends lethargy, a wick      without wax, a         canine without the order    of mastery. The beach is d      isgusting:        compels, repels, sucks and He looks      sends ba      ck, in waves of ever-increasing      torment. up, espies the comet,      t        he comment, tries to lean back.. embrace        the luxury.

26      Oh Carla, you called.!            I was in perilous straits    , unlikely          to form sentences, or crack a           code          (joke). Fine to hear a friend                  found me, salivating for bore- dom          before...   life that worried its crouton      to dust.

27        AFTER DAVI          D GASCOYNE One    founders in a castle of delight, mark    ing            outside schedules with dreamy incompetence,      staini  ng all the sheets with mercy,          coward           of intelligible, intense apogees of      mischief. The         candle founders, dark in cradled            infamy,          like Ern Malley,        like a teacher's surreptitio    us agenda, that          paradise hidden in all           the fancy books. Story      goes: once had a churl, traded                  him for a girl, got elemental      diseases  , not incendiary            phases, nor a breath     of maturity,    I mean, it was weird, not having      m      y gross ego to confound me. But that          joke         still bumps me now, edging    on into wakefulness. It is           a cold mashed potato.      It is a grump in the night.        Speckled tortoise:            you ain't nothing new          to me! I've fun shoes angling,            you see, toward pret      ernatural        vagrancy, and corny ties,          and crooked         hair, all a symphony of occurrence        suffocating         bad chatter            (in the suburbs, where it        begins, ado  pts mercurial guises, and          coins a new theory),           I've plenty            to mess with. The group      , nonetheless,            in black shirts, white shorts,          red waist ban          ds, assemble outside,    brandishing tickets, all stable          in ge    stures of seasonal discomforts        - no coffee cures,   no    herbal expedients, no craning      for syllables.

28    prep  ubescent emmanuelle

29            Resources (discussing). The      new           structuralism cannot un-warp perversion's          singularity.

30            Scenario: a young    girl congratulating her broth    er for making            his first talk show appearance. She goes    t      o the dressing room, and sees that he            is g        etting his face done.            When he turns around, h        e has          dense cakes of facial make-up...    She is shock        ed, but he says "nobody will          notice, it's s  tage make-up." He is Jewish, and        the cut       to the talk show hosts' monologue shows that    he     is doing an anti-semite joke, Anyway, as the            li  ttle interview progresses,          with the talk show host going            on   about himself, letting off        farts and things, the st        age        make-up, which is clearly noticeable,          begins to slip           off. Eventually, he just pulls          the stuff back up, like       in a face-life, but    the mask continues to fall, making him look    ,    at moments, like his eyes are peering from    behind a dea      th mask. Eventually, it      just falls off.

31      S    ection based on Nirvani's        web sites.

32    She could go o        n forever      analyzing the minute spaces between her                  thought. Or anybody else's        thought, for that matter. We        won   her. She has come. And taken        the life from them,     at the same      time. So she plasters the walls wi          th        her oils.

33          Sister, where        are you, w      ho promised me you'd lend      me twenty    dollars? it's          not Zen-like of you to        c          onform so poorly, with the clock,        leaving me          in neurosis! Hale          the buzzer.

34            Stasis is futile          .      Story            of person who experiences sleep   for      the first time (coaching from          friends, feel of accomplish        ment, naive          first impressions, etc.)

35            Stranger,      y  ou. may grow up to be possessed by certain          ideas, ef  fusions from the rump. The cut glass            will become your       syllables, mister,            miser - you will vacate         numerous            rooms before finding the one    that names you: Sir         Charlatan. And      that's why there is something lac    king    in your prepossession, your way with      corne        rs and milk. The abstract on            the vitamins was boring readin  g,          but that's before vermilion covered    the synta        x with stories of      wars, sparring, dances;         the rectilinear          applauses didn't distract you.            On a purpl      e bed, with the dawn    streaking across your breast (freed    breasts,   shaking thighs, glow of misapplied diligence    on he        r face - she is Pavlova redivivus,            a flower- child - nobody   told her        of the industrial revolution!), clo          cks burn the misery            of unslept nights in a crown of wakening s        uburbs,    buses, and coffee carts, withering       that        ill taste in your mouth, calling it an        addicti        on. One more year in the        Gulag - when will they f        inally get your bed linen    right, so you sleep all nested and com      fortable            in the smells of your hometown, those dandeli          on            fissures, those maternal chokes, those cars! Frankinsense        could do it. But the body rebels. Artificial,        fascist forms of           education: pronunciation      drills, charts and rubber s    hoes,            books ba- lanced on head - whoops,      there it goes - could,       indeed subtract    from your powers - your exhibitionism.            Or so      mebody could simply show you, target,    it's the industri        al revolution - and it's coming            to a theatre near you!

36            The            hype of me, so American, I wander        fitfully in sleep's cauldrons, hot as an      old novelist tha        t's forgotten his themes.    That's my sin: so           cold in leg, no glee          ever sold         /        / satisfied me.

37          The          mad dictator made the trains           run well, so punctually, no one questioned            his demeano        r: mean. The season's        change, all's caught   in summery surprise:            so reason's otherwise luminou  s            demesne was darkened: not            a spark of sense, or non    sense. Redactor      of histories, of lore - he jerks off          i  n the park seeming so teasing to, reall    y,      no one. He is a wonder of abject pleasi    ng,      of vagrant pleasure's teeming, and            th    us wakes, pissed. The mad dictator        is split:    one half counter-parliamentary,        one bit running w      ith us    toward liberty. But        never, never      , in fact, fruitfully conversational.            So when the     head count's in, he's out            in the random li    brary, doing arithmetic.          They voted him in,     nonetheless. He          was a resounding voice of difference  .            Not too hygienic, not    so deluding.

38            The paper is        still there...

39    The plans      for the stadiu      m are always being postponed.          Tedium, too, falls, l        ike the five-year          plan, like a curtain of swans    down, over every        child and lover.

40      The           TOTAL      eaters fan club.            They        argue abo      ut cooking sausages: "I'm not going to use      a fucking te        aspoon every time I cook a fucking    sausage:"

41    They die, o    r they go to heaven      without dying.

42      They   stocked up on        three varieties of soda: cher  ry, regular,            diet.

43      This is our own story, with    b      eginning and end. Who tries to make a farce of      it, tells us we    're troubled, infants, jerks      - that has been the standard exper    ience of each            new generation, just getting on.         But we're wary            (or should be) of such oppositions. An  d keep          gurgling our nonsense - until its age      ,          its clamor, resounds in the empty volume        of this gymnasium       that we've        been aligned within.

44        Voyans,        or The Structurali        st Nightmare Goes Public

45    Wavering        between luck and zen (s          ent the planes        down) the UN US interchangeable demanding     new syntax      from the markets.

46            We had the           author    of "The Western Canon" living in our building.            We thought to place a small porcelain cannon          outside his do      or, but we never did it.

47        What have we here? (drama   or design?)

48        What's this got to do with my first    co      mmunion? What's this got          to do with the new reunion? Wha      t's      this got to do with the sliding scale?          What's this got t      o do, that we're    going no where? The hero        es    are all hermaphrodites in my hanging          paper lantern  , they talk when          they weep: it's magic,   like a Christmas tree    in April. Several antsy fan          zines        I've collected on my front porch...                  but the wind don't blow no    more, and the fireman'        s not home.

49            What's this...            something for my mailing li        st?            This isn't going to be good for        my bulimia.            Just call me Paradise      Theatre (his interest in Styx).

50            W      ill            starvation drive an artist out    of his t      omb?

51    Winter, too,            has its paradigms.

52      You    must           find solace in the charge, and          resent.

53          You tend t  o see things in black and    white; I tend to       see things with          their grays in between, and even          the           occasional burst of color.

54          You'll see            that there's a seas        on, a reason            the blackouts shrugged and      persisted, diletta  ntes a figure of hope likely    to be amusing         to nobody. That's            when you cared an  d cash and      carried the cigarette charm -ing    lighter -            the paradise for keepsies. Burning        holes in the ceme    nt (trying to fathom            what your mother meant by that      code, her   matchbook (secret matchbook)    contained   your picture, my          puncture, her wound - p          ink elephants.          There is toffee on the table          there is syrup        in the milk, there is     movement          on the perimeter, there is a        shogun warrior a        nd there is a ring            of saliva and there shall be   calm in the evenings    - afterwards we pl          ayed    injuns and plagues. Warning:      p      arables. And easy cutlet and lawn    chair.    Freedom is an afterthought,            after love suggested the cons          titution. Carlyle        popped out of the op        en box. He screamed,    another talent wasted o    n portable fictions.            Scram, beat it.