It Turns Out I Don't Mention Your Name In Them, But The Woman In Them Is You

[Following is a group of poems I wrote after the John Wieners memorial that doesn't so much have to do with Wieners but might be considered an homage to the spirit of his style in that my hope was to write poems that were "skids," that simply tumbled from point to point as if searching for something though with no very specific goal in mind, like fumbling through a darkened room for a pair of eyeglasses. They're also erotic, if only sporadically (directed at one Lady -- as Robert Duncan might put it -- I had met that night), and more or less capture in its loose net the characters present at the event, those people who presented, who worked at the Poetry Project that evening, etc.

I'm ashamed to say that these poems haven't been revised since those first evenings after the event when I was actually writing them -- you'll notice in the third "fit" that I'm mourning the loss of my memory of the evening -- and so they are hit and miss, but this being a blog I'm not so sure that that matters. A "fit" is a section of a long poem, the term is from Middle English. The titles to the poems, which I recycle for each fit, were created for a dance piece that never happened; only occasionally do they have to do with the poems themselves. I think my models for these were something like Miles Champions' Sore Models sequence, which was itself patterned after a sequence by Kit Robinson, but also the poems of Raworth and Eliot of "The Preludes." Click the "read more" for more fits -- enjoy!]

It Turns Out I Don't Mention Your Name In Them, But The Woman In Them Is You
(after a John Wieners tribute)

fit 1

One Million Pakistanis And Indians Line Up Along The Canadian Border

our little wisdoms were wrong
he will rip them all up
afterwards
and cough
bleed into the trough
masculine for winifred
but taking it out for new york
soon
people
couldn't stand him
eddie money
was ruined

F. B. I. Denies Any Lack Of Interest In Outcome Of World Cup

those eyes
made it difficult
for me
to ask you
for longer
than a question
we spent
glassy-eyed
new england types
hurtful
that we'd
ever spoken

Smallpox Vaccinations Urged for Zimbabwean Court

and genesis
p-orridge
free, too
as well that no one
remembers
us
when the covers
close
she bloops one
over second
this retires
the side

Tobacco Companies Said To Fine Amish For Dispute Over Traffic Symbols

so stand
or bear it
or sit
talking leftly
which ain't pretty
of me
so i daren't
and we coffee
it over to the end
of the
evening
avoiding all drink

Clinton Library Work Begins To Claim Victims In Utah

i am simply not
a "go" dater
conversation
pulls like trannies
away from the dock
we stare
into each
others' bedrooms
might we
go there, submissive
to words of
impassive defeat

Afghan Refugees Languishing In Camps Approach Vnukovo Airport

she
approaches
this poem
wondering aloud
beside
curtains
we've arranged
for her arrival
blent
with the walls
so she'll
stand there

Venus and Serena Williams Lambast Ex-Tyco Chief, Fight To Establish Rights

could hercules
with his love
for drama
have survived three sets
of these
amorous
fits
i may stand
by the window
showing
my arms off
to culture's unknowns

Hubble Telescope Returns Images Of Alanis Morisette And Takes A Second Spin

she ain't
bad
so why not
underdevelop
the
visionary strain
that
thwarts
driving lessons
colorado awaits
so do the trees
of french guyana

Accountants Are Revisiting Pacino, Signalling End To Recession

pulling me in
after i've
given 1950s boston
a go
with lightweight
flattery i've never heard
this haircut tastes delicious
though it
makes skies
out of ceilings
she was serious
she's the wise end of it

V.D. “Lady” Lamprey Questioned On Lifestyle

this part fissile
our editorial policy
est mort
est extinctee
est vrai
the lamb with sacks
signs cheques
to blend with canada's
monopolies of
albacore
in the kitchen
amply furnished

fit 2

One Million Pakistanis And Indians Line Up Along The Canadian Border

one year before
pere ubu
father peeked
in
she run
was arrested early
special keys
on
the typewriter found
her parse
thumb
to mask eager winterreise

F. B. I. Denies Any Lack Of Interest In Outcome Of World Cup

i want to tell you something
about this eye problem
that won't let me
look too closely
at anything that
moves too quickly
or changes direction
toward the right side of my
face
where you sat
and i wanted to cry
for fear of appearing ugly

Smallpox Vaccinations Urged for Zimbabwean Court

some butch chinese sage
they had em
right before
world war iii
then we start talking
and share happy ampersand
of donne
stuyvesant
can't help but smile
he's got the woods too
but that's before
africa woos

Tobacco Companies Said To Fine Amish For Dispute Over Traffic Symbols

she was the crumbly
printer jam, it's
clear we've spoken
twelve
times
largesse is october
so i've received
one poster signed r creeley
a newsletter from boston
free entry
and you
will be listening

Clinton Library Work Begins To Claim Victims In Utah

the students snap
at harvard
and me, pausing
remembers it
free
hiring a dog
to chase linen
and part of canada
opaque
to young people
you sleep through this
half credited

Afghan Refugees Languishing In Camps Approach Vnukovo Airport

in clothes
i breathe
your talk
of
smoke now
we quit
pronouncing
to just buckle up
once
sophistic
might we forfeit the
room

Venus and Serena Williams Lambast Ex-Tyco Chief, Fight To Establish Rights

i'm after
the lie
but belong
well past it
maturity throws
it's weed balls
the basement opens
it calls
another name
sounds like you
planting different seed
let's hurry and meet up

Hubble Telescope Returns Images Of Alanis Morisette And Takes A Second Spin

with fresh
tonsils
who makes
second debuts
purpl
er but thinner
ghost goes
fitness sucks
we've trampol
ened into circuit bliss
i hold
next wednesday

V.D. “Lady” Lamprey Questioned On Lifestyle

voidoids
entered
boston voidoids
new york voidoids
less
impressive
but the founder
yet slim
i pointed
you spun
chris asked
that's how it started

Accountants Are Revisiting Pacino, Signalling End To Recession

with gingko barriers
unleashed
pastoral
oxygen
moralist of this is
life is best casual
mouth don't ache
mother don't phone
so much
panic
might suggest
i'd hardly weasel care

fit 3

One Million Pakistanis And Indians Line Up Along The Canadian Border

i suppose the privilege is hysteria
able to tease sentence like evening
spent searching wildly
for this sort of fuck
seems hesitant but right
there
when youth made all things declare
are you with us or not, if not get out
of my poem
what sort of easy strength a web
of friendship keeping the aphasic
somewhere worrying amazing poetry

F. B. I. Denies Any Lack Of Interest In Outcome Of World Cup

"beat" takeshi
but an inky blur
they put a new sink in
just now
elliot scolded
the solderer
saying i had to write
i shut off the mac
i am thinking on the pc
where what
was her bathed
for my privileged trance

Smallpox Vaccinations Urged for Zimbabwean Court

seeing light branches
in a falling window
seeing my face
in these words, huh
so when
they arrive
one can attest
to fatal
strategies
certainly should they fail
i'll move to ontario
who said you're expecting me

Tobacco Companies Said To Fine Amish For Dispute Over Traffic Symbols

he had the pungent air
of a minor dictator
and the
limp
of a wildcat
those weren't arms
that stroked my
cheeks
she was trying
to shout
herecleitus' waves
were hardly competition

Clinton Library Work Begins To Claim Victims In Utah

i tried to sit
like masculine
with her
aplomb all eyes
of course not
laughter periodically
tones of
morning
in wieners' poems
that is, he awoke
with some yet st. square
before him

Afghan Refugees Languishing In Camps Approach Vnukovo Airport

but as these
ghosts fade
even the afghans
fade
from blaring fact
of you
smile
no longer suspending
after many suns and
moons
this bed
is death and unkind

Venus and Serena Williams Lambast Ex-Tyco Chief, Fight To Establish Rights

you can speak
but you
won't
and here i'm forgetting you
with each
mention
how tall you list
what facile curve
your
quote is full poetry
it's apparent
i'm an evening fetishist

Hubble Telescope Returns Images Of Alanis Morisette And Takes A Second Spin

i'd want one
anchor
your interest
to part
sea
it won't mind
north korean spies won't mind
boston poets won't mind
can we talk
alone
standing
next to charles shively

V.D. “Lady” Lamprey Questioned On Lifestyle

because of these ideas
on marble surfaces
bless you
counselor
we have two of them now
toothless and wise
vegetables in fact
with war chests
she
was
sitting next to me
waiting for raymond foye

Accountants Are Revisiting Pacino, Signalling End To Recession

perhaps my expressions
are too advanced
i'm probably ten years older than her
i'm expecting
her to be bored
with things i haven't yet
said, though she's never heard them before
and certainly not in
church
asian canadians can write poems
jam. ismail spends half the year
                                                            in hong kong

Posted by Brian Stefans at December 27, 2002 12:09 PM