"Memory Research"

mem. memorize today
what was in your book
yesterday; scans, no?
not really; but make an index,
curse again, write too much
 

"Fell"

fallen

  apple
 song in the head
  well, not really
 it's just that I want
 to sing it
  or hum it
and fall into bed with you

 and then

  eat an apple.
 
 
 

"The Philosophy of Reading"

Planned as an exploration of how people read:
 

"After Peligius reconnoitered and determined the power of the enemy, he went
to meet Prince Alexander to tell him about the enemy's camp and
fortifications.  Peligius remained on the seashore watching both roads and
therefore he did not sleep the entire night.  And when the sun began to rise
he heard a loud noise from the sea and saw a moving ship, and in the midst
of the ship stood holy martyrs, Boris and Gleb, dressed in crimson vestments
and embracing each other.  The men rowing appeared as if in clouds."
Medieval Russia's Epics, Chronicles, and Tales, Page 228.

Reading:

must  look up reconnoitered - I picture the white mouse king in the
nutcracker to be triumphant on a hill and looking to see how many other
dots, which were actually distant horses, were on the field-

  always "power of the enemy" and not "weakness of the enemy"

 is the word Peligius related to the Italian word for skin?
 (question sounds conceited, makes me want to make a joke:

   of course I can't write the joke here,
   any joke in literature must be spontaneous -
   there's no buildup to a joke
   otherwise it becomes like a movie about a poet
   where the poem will be so obviously built up to
   that it cannot be any good because the expectation for     the poem
   has become too great.

               (how far over should the next stanza be?))

 ;possibilities of stanza length limited by the actuality of the stanza
length;
  ;from superposition to position;

To fortify sounds so alchemical,
building layers of solidity around such vulnerability, to forge iron.
        (do you forge iron or steel?
       I should ask somebody before          I show this to anyone)
I'm far too interested in the concept of things, I have no ability to read
for plot.

   What fascinated me most about the paragraph
   Was how Peligius does not sleep
   Because he has to watch both roads all night;
   It makes the purely historical document
   Have an underlayer of metaphor,
   I suppose this happens all the time
   But here is where it struck me first -

    It relates to a person with too many lovers
    (Casanova syndrome)
    Who cannot listen to one love fully
    And is not able to enjoy even that in life.
    It relates to the idea of cosmic guilt,
    I think it's Husserl's idea
 (I didn't read Husserl I just heard a lecture on a tape about him -
    I feel like that demeans the knowledge)
    He says that cosmic guilt is the guilt you feel
For not being able to actualize all of your potentials in the world
That we live in, it is the guilt that we feel, as people, for dying.

I think that this is a cheesy piece of writing, stream of consciousness
writing was done and it did lead to new places, but ultimately I think that
it is like a comment I saw on a video which  said that Cubism was a new
language that had no inherent content and a couple of true masters: Braque
and Picasso and Gris.  Stream of Consciousness writing's content does not
direct its form. There is nothing which it has to say because it is Stream
of Consciousness writing as a Romance novel must tell of a romance and. . .
. . . . . . . . . . .

Psych Ward
 
 

Columbus should have set out to discover

the New World with a boatload of madmen.
Andre Breton
 
 

An accident brings me here

a schiz break
 
 

Before I went in the hospital

the morning was shot thru

with the gray lines of interference

the details of obscurity
sketched in by the draftsman

a shudder ran thru it
and set its bones dancing

ever see a morning having a fit

panic attack of gray luster

speeding thru my brain

until paranoia applied

the brakes sliding

around the curves

and careening madly

out of control
 
 

In the mental hospital

it's taken me ten days to remember
the last time
I tried to think of yr face

and there are no lines left here to forget

the passing of time is pushing me away

shoving by my right shoulder in a hurry
to get some place else
  I'm already inside of
 
 

In the mental hospital

wandering the shiny halls
or sitting
in the TV-infested dayroom

the discoverers of
New Lands
new Jesuses

new Aztecs
 new aromas

try to breath in thick atmosphere

like powdered stone and
the emotion-jelly made from

frequent gestures
kept

secret in the family

untold in the past but now

revealed
by our “illnesses”

(a host of medical terms bursting out all

over here really an insurmountable

barrier between our daily world

and yrs)
fat hospital-gowned gods

Buddhisattvas on Holdol

unseen outside a psycho-religious

laboratory sit and peer strangely

at each other
each visitor
 each fresh patient

and
 with hand out
 ask for change

for the payphone candy

Bibles a wink eye-contact

a smile or a mind-picture

for later masturbatory contemplation
 
 

In the mental hospital

I’d give my bottom row of teeth

let them rot

my remorse

crawling like a snake up a stranger’s dress

my ageless guilt

like a tape loop

my caterpillar of a cock

more useless than my teeth

my thin lips

dry and wordless from meds

my paper tongue
 with no poem written on it

my left testicle

one-third of an unproductive factory

and my shell games of paranoia

for a bicycle I cd ride the halls on

like one of Samual Becket’s ambulating
psychic ghosts
 with dumb stones
weighing down my pockets
 and
humming a medley thru my nose
 
 

In the mental hospital

our voices are spoiled by

jinx and highjinx

flux and reflux

flow and overflow

the sound of dripping

brains drip-dripping

down our
throats

or
the drip-holes

stuffed inarticulate

with neuroleptics
and
 tranquilizers

stuttering out

with the low flow of current
 and the stigma of lunacy
crackling out nonsense

at each other

about how and
when we’ll get out
 
 

   doctor sez nex week- i’m the second coming

   but he’s been sayin it for-
   the frog’s gasping at-
ah month now-
   the basterds’ve dragged it out-

   like subliminal messages at your local K-mart-

it’s long enough now and i’m tired
 

In the mental hospital

you can’t rest without looking like a fool

only demons and angels rest here

no one else has the stamina

breathing’s like work

but you don’t get paid

thinking gets you in trouble

(that’s what we’re all here for: thinking)

and the Brothers and
 Sisters of Intensity

look thru under around over
 between past
almost at you

always looking just a little
away
so they don’t have to
think
 and maybe wind up joining you

on the otherside of that hardly
recognizable line

between patient and staff

and laugh at yr self-dishonesty

yr delusions

the patience of yr
visitors
yr
 casualness and yr potential
for any calm and cool
 

(how can anyone put up with you
 without being paid)

you

no longer
exist
pal

it’s the hard ward now

and there’s no coming back
 
 

In the mental hospital

memories of
flyers pamphlets

tracts messages letters

telegrams unanswered

phone messages insults

praise
overheard conversations

a woman talking
about the devil-voices

in the hallways

the way the staff’s
 telepathisized thoughts

electrify the air

and the way
 an older patient
combs his hair

all conspire to
order my afternoon’s

paranoia between
lunch and dinner
 
 

In the mental hospital

I meet a man
 who bets on

the I-Ching

coughs articulately

dilates his eyes
at the coming of rain

and says he’ll be
 out in ten days
 
 

In the mental hospital

I sweat at night

in my sleep
 and wake up

cold in the morning
 
 

Today looking out

the window of my hospital room
:
we ask for tickets

in the trash along the fence

hoping to find the carved

interiors of our lives

and if it rains

we will be

sitting in a tunnel

wishing for the warm

sun and smelling

the crystals growing

in the cracks on the walls
 
 

I left the hospital thinking

the old ways
 are the old ways
are forming
 on the street
to the right
 
 

During my first week

as an ex-inmate
 I thought a lot

about my mother and

wondered if her
 schiz breaks

were like mine

now I can walk here

down any street

in her shoes

feeling the cold

and looking

for a place
 to park
my ass

.

Spring and Summer 1998

Greg Fitzsimmons
 
 

Chicago Poem

         el       train going where night is always.
     in one of the those dreams controlled
 electronic                    sets off alarms
               on a couple of levels
old equipment   piping         doors
       we project ourselves     in circles

 I'm pretty rational now

     dead part of me    also part of a school
.
this city was suppose to be Chicago
but it was different
           upper stories     told quieter

Maybe an end to winter-- it is literally no substance

 I have time-traveled
from either everything-is-very-strictly-regulated
or from the-top-down.
 Both     huge buildings
     luxurious              but
multi-leveled           abandoned
            in grey                   circles above

More:
         a large building
         State of Illinois
         a train in last night's dream rending
     sprawl and coke     burnt
                                     soft
                                  places
 technical people     public relation operatives
                                            hanging out in large groups

no bottom
     can't possibly imagine one

                                          down to this where ever
 

We have gone past
a part that was the same in this other dream

GOLDEN

This moment in three black.
 

One , his skin, licked by Hugo Boss cotton -
carbon immaculate, sharp.

Two, his BMW the licence plate
EBONY, a  yellow cloth in hand wiping
any drab starling down,
        puny-ass dust,
                or cheap Australian motes
from thirty coats
                of credit card enamel.

Three black, his blond girlfriend's dress on
hip swished in fuck you boredom
Her eyes: "Nothing to do with me."

Underline = italics

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
 

A peacock blue late 50s pontiac
                                basking outside the local brothel.
Spring is a grinning saboteur.

Les Wicks
 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The airport is so clean.
You hold your stomach, talk about nothing but radiotherapy.
And even those few tears have a chemical taint.

Blood filled dreams
Ice in my veins
pour in the street
like acid in the rain
run like water
the taste don't go away
the sacrafices we make to each other
mean nothing...with each drop we save
It don't hurt until we see it
wash the pain away...
stain glass mirror
reflects blood tears on each page
blood in dreams stab my eyes
blood filled dreams
drain the life from me
watch it slowly die
somehow sentenced to living
with the hollow existance of the blood thirst beast
the dying seeds of death is what the reaper eats
pain devours life
whats on your mind
blood on your hands
shed in your street
razor tounge slit throat narritivly speaks
run in my eyes blinded with greed
sell your blood to drink
because to you death is sweet
like water it runs
the deal you make with ripped out hearts
in another life we'll rest
but in death we'll sleep
as we see with tombstone eyes
turned away in vain another drink
deny the empty shadows of your dreams
death divides us with fear
quick to die slow to think
worship decay teach deciet
washed away into midnight
dripping from your memories
it hurts to bleed
 
 

where am I bleeding from
where am I bleeding from
again stabbed with a forked tounge
all the hearts gone from me
die of love it hurts to bleed
I can't feel it beating
pumping fast
minds gone numb
where am I bleeding from?
where am I bleeding from?
theres no more life in me
I can no longer love
am I dying in this apathy
turn to dust
all the pains gone away
I dont want to leave the warmth of this dream
all my lifes moving inside my eyes
I don't want to return to the cold world
I don't want to leave the warmth of the dream
 

"With You Gone"
 

Who's going to rape the population
and bllled sorrow out thier eyes
a laeders empty remorse
a laughter filled with lies
out of order definations
now replace the dull grey skies
and sentence a generation to corruption
you don't have to run from denial
It's not only through windows
that the street describes
the the blood like taste of life

you can hear it if you listen
the exhaust still breathes
even after the engines die
like a dozen other winners
the girls in the wrong place
re enter treasuring misery
submitting newfound advice
as you steal enough mirroring
and preach your good time
then finally turn on yourself
to subscribe to a pack of lies