After Waves*

to Aaron Miller
after Gary Hill and Paul Sharits

Children repeat
This wave after me
This image is something
That changes waves
A grainy voice
Should glisten
On this sea

Turns of phrase

The image is something
That changes shape
The image
Something that
Shapes change
A voice
Seen should
Listen to me

Turning grain after grain

Repeat this wave
Repeat after me the
Image is something
Heard distantly
Here is why
We have some stake in color

Heterodyne ~ turn these waves off

Flick them on turning
Phrase after
Phrase
Images should be
Heard
And not seen
Not on these dark waves

These waves turning on and on

Children repeat
To make a change
There is
No reversing
These waves
Only enacting world

These phrases turning like waves

They tune to
Our dreams hetero-
dyne
That a boat was too
Small on that
Sea
That
A phrase was too small
For its frame

From this distance turning grain after grain

As the waves turn off and
Off
Repeat this wave
This word after waves
Heterodyne
A voice is something that
Distorts words
Making them occur

Repeat this image a grainy voice flicks

Children repeat this effect after me

*composed Winter-Spring '05

"a total sense of sense" (the Senseless)

"Seeing, at last, your mind as it must be at times in unendurable anguish, a series of events leading to that sense of self as burden, artaud making art of it, misery, saw your minding of such in my own horror, shocked, shaking my head a crazy catalogue of images, classical symbols, cartoons of grief -- but it is not always so and it is that lack of it which has to stand for joy in the absence of blessings -- and there are, in rare instances, blessings and you are often there at those places and I have a total sense of sense and you are absolutely cream, having to step on plastic flowers, my mind bursting, blossoming -- someday I will tell you my dreams when it is quiet and I am more willing to let the tragic have its due warmth -- that comes later; now I am content that my dreams were dreams."
--Paul Sharits, 1966

The Thunder : Perfect Mind*

Take me
[understanding] from grief
and take me
to yourselves from understanding
[and] grief.
And take me
to yourselves from places
that are ugly and in ruin,
and rob from those
which are good even though in ugliness.
Out of shame, take me
to yourselves shamelessly;
and out of shamelessness
and shame, upbraid my members
in yourselves.
And come forward to me,
you who know me
and you who
know my members,
and
establish the great ones among the small
first creatures.
Come forward to childhood,
and do not despise it
because it is small and it is little.
And do not turn away
greatness in some parts from the
smallnesses,
for
the smallnesses are known
from the greatnesses.

*from *The Nag Hammadi Library*, trans. George W. MacRae, ed. Douglas M. Parrott (my lineation)...

Innocence (a proposition)*

for Robert Creeley

“… but blinds as it blinds
itself through
what it illuminates.”
-- Jean Francois Lyotard

Some times I know
What it is
To be exposed

What I am to be
This dark singing
Under a lamp.

It is not
To do anything
Not what

We would want
To do, as in
Any impulse

But by necessity
To feel everything
Outside inside

The “dark singing
under a lamp"—
as are such burdens.

I know it is to be
Born out by that
Total regard

Of what it is to be
Seeing also
In a light’s edges.

Song,
Of necessity turning
Cast us back

So to think
The lines
Themselves.

*composed Winter-Spring '05

Bouquat On* (Review)

For the past seven years, Abby Walton (along with collaborators Beth Houfek, Sarah Saltzman and others) has been throwing a Valentine's party (qua gallery-sized "installation"/qua all night dance-off) she calls a "bouquat." Says Walton, the bouquat originates in parties her parents and their friends used to throw around Valentine's day in Columbus, Ohio. In the past the bouquat has had the (often twin) themes of: swans (Swanny Boquat), bears/berries (Beary Bear Boquat), weather/fast food (Windy's Taco Tornado), mandables and chocolate (Cocoa Clap). This year's bouquat is called Taj Mahal Twilight, and features (who can guess?) the motifs Taj Mahal and stars.

In addition to making elaborate wall and ceiling hangings, wallpaper, baked goods, kissing booths, and playing dance music (generally Hip-Hop and more recently Reggaeton) each year Walton and her collaborators also provide party favors after their theme. This year's favor is a collaboration between myself and Walton, a horoscope which I post below.

Combining folk-"craftiness" with art school "knowing" the bouquat (like much of Walton's work) is an original negotiation of recent gallery-sized installations/environments (of Whitney Biennial or Chelsea galleries) and the more traditional design sensibilities of the party thrower. What makes a difference in this later category is the sheer amount of work and attention to detail the artist gives to the bouquat, an event for which she prepares the entire year round, and for which she is helped by many hands (gathering materials, printing, baking, hanging).

Among other projects Walton is currently at work on, you may also check her ongoing self-portaiture (she has taken a Polaroid of herself nearly every day for the past 5 years), and her "Ponathons," a sewing circle where instead of sewing the participants make miniature pom-poms from a variety of yarrns and other materials. Walton is also the maker of any number of limited edition books, including our collaboration Tears Are These Veils (Wild Horses of Fire, 2004).
ARIES - March 21 to April 20.
There is no more need to war. Your spirit itself is a sign of moving, fatalistically current. Blinking, believing you are. You are the planet closest to the sun and said to be reddened. Tonight you will discover things as they are.

TAURUS - between April 21 to May 21.
You have so many means to be bright. And wistful on this current day of stars. On this current day when you are going to belong to someone. Beauty holds its own rejoinders.

GEMINI - May 22 to June 21 Mercury.
Don’t divide men. Men and women Mercury. Your mirror’s too tidy to be the twin. To be the twin of discourse, of conversation. Your place or mine? You give birth to yourself but there is another who awaits you nearby.

CANCER - between June 22 to July 22.
Perpetual betrothals. Moons suggest the words of your ascensions, the degrees of your downs. Your magnetic directness is a telepathy of noon-tide. Kisses are now or never.

LEO - July 23 to August 23. Their keywords are I will, Sun.
Your keywords are I will. You will be my courage. My gravity. We must split. And sever tongues. To become the set. Is always was. To play at grace. To love becoming one only.

VIRGO - between August 24 to September 22.
I have analyzed once and for all. The moon and the stars. The stars inside. Your love is not just for the future. It is the true love of experiment. A present surpassed by your patience.

LIBRA - September 23 to October 23.
If only you were the world. The world would be a balance. Of the pachyderm on the tortoise and the tortoise on a pearl. That is, you are the green world. The green world of latest things. Everyone reveling in your love.

SCORPIO - October 24 to November 22.
Be thankful. You who desire Pluto. Sometimes you would like to use whips and sometimes a feather boa. Mainly you see the thing you want, however far away. And don’t tend to hold on too long, equivocity being your advantage.

SAGITTARIUS - November 23 to December 21
You see all. That much is clear. Not only your waking dreams, but a vision of the one you seek tonight. And beyond the night, the all. Opening yourself to someone new.
Riding events to their end.

CAPRICORN - December 22 to January 20
Instruments are not of the essence. They only seem of the essence when you want to predict the stars. Let go of someone old (dying stars) and embrace someone new.

AQUARIUS - January 21 to February 19.
Make your feelings known. But do not know only your feelings. When there is another near you to love. Knowing what they feel too.

PISCES - February 20 to March 20.
Believe in pieces and peaceably believe. You will go home together. You will go home across time with your beloved.

No Idem Mother*

Rotate come track the camera around
Come walk the camera around him with child
Come track the camera walk around him an innocent one
An innocent one will pray come track that prayer
Come track that prayer prayer until time ends
Come track until she extends time her life in prayer
Her life in prayer come track her prayer extend the life of mother
Extend her hand vision mother camera pace around these loving two
Light as air he picks up the child her kiss and his embrace as light as air

Effortless to pray for the dead to pray for the dead the dead will come again clocks clocks must pick up where they left off

Where they left off come pace the camera around that lightest prayer for mother

For mother wish this night this night away until day until daylight shines through these windows come track those weeds the wind down


Come walk with the camera camera around around one room one room for the two her kiss as light

Effortless extend her hand as vision this will be a day the body stays stays on earth this will be a day the eyes await

Awaken as in the days of old camera pace in one room in one in one room with the two in one room with the two two candles by the window will show no way through darkness tonight keep pacing keep pace until today the light through the two windows

Two go down go down together together in prayer pacing around the light a kiss the lightest kiss the light on the wall in the room pacing the room of two their light

Spring or fall light one can not tell summer light wind down by the reeds the two one can not tell weather moves over the dunes to find them pacing effortlessly

Effortless as the sea the wind in the reeds the two the two is she dead or are we mother born by prayer by the two two windows filling the room with light the mourners


Rising effortless as the wind from the sea lifting rising to make their tears commence prayer is a habit and a movement make it happen make mother rise again

Make mother the camera here and pacing walk pacing walk around this room room of two in prayer eyes with tears two eyes with tears two windows

Come track until she extends her death in life clocks stop clocks stop until she renders her death in life a kiss
the kiss of one born the kiss the kiss of one dead rising effortlessly as the wind from the sea with tears in her eyes cheeks cheeks and teeth

A new mother not an imitation a new mother a new mother who renders this death in life her tears to be renewed as in the days of old

Her tears our tears for time for time to be renewed the fleeting of of this death in life how light shines on the walls from the windows the reeds how they gather perceptible wind


How tears gather how the mourners gather tears lifting so effortlessly so light to render this kiss this kiss is life rendering death

Pray how the body comes and pray how the wind comes by these tears obey the body the wind in the reeds this camera pace the two pace the two in a circle in a circle the center of the world that has no circumference multiple centers for the eyes this death in life how the body comes how her life alights wind

Light thoughts light think light the child the child thinks light prays her kiss so light this shot around so effortless a central event this camera track circle pace a light the child’s kiss

Labor on the waves a play of light dies it renders life dead and living play on the waves the way reeds tend

We tend toward wind camera pace renewal of the eyes light in the eyes this death in life she breaths again she gasps she kisses no imitation

No mother in resemblance go down the two to reed beds go down the two to win this innocence child pray kiss child pray

*composed Winter-Spring, '05.

For Your Son When He Can Read*

to Alasdair Schlesinger

Pick a time and pluck
The printer thinks in ink
The eyes see mimicry
And pursue it
To their blankest song

These pulses are of the eyes

To blink endlessly
Blink
Among anything your
Body can know
By loving the world
Which you seek

This feeling which is first

Walk amply
In this time
Of letters cleaving thoughts
A body of your
Speaking
Simple whips of talk

Of this prairie green
A myth of this greenness

Initially this spectrum
The mouth is its
Own motor
The body becomes
The world in words
Going a million miles

Green preceding waves
Green conceiving

Attend seriously to
Attention
Errant in its emergence
Flick eyes sing
The mind that is
The body flashing
In a time it leaves

These letters playing their love

Graphically this integer
This year, this
Tear
In time
That is your birth
Against any drudgery

Overtures that overturn all

Attend to attention
Attend
A time of marks, of
Lines again
Your grace is not an
Artillery
Nor a crick of clocks

These pulses are of the ears

*composed February, 2005 for the occasion of Alasdair Schlesinger's birth.