Desert City Poetry Series

[Ken Rumble <rumblek AT bellsouth.net>]

Please spread far and wide.........

Who:  Cole Swensen, Finalist for the 2004 
National Book Award in Poetry for her book 
_Goest_, author of 9 other collections of 
poetry, translator of some of the best of 
contemporary French poetry, a faculty member 
at the Iowa Writers' Workshop, also famous 
for building a life-size model of Big Ben out 
of America Online CDs.

Who:  Chris Vitiello, author of _Nouns Swarm 
a Verb_, survivor of the Lucipo roadshow, 
rumored to be the head of a theatre group 
whose existence is itself rumored to be a rumor.

What:  Desert City Poetry Series, when you 
care to hear the very best.

When:  This Saturday, February 19th, 8:00pm, 
2005.

Where:  Internationalist Books, 405 W. 
Franklin Street, Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Why:  "I've / always / wanted / said the 
painter // and so he did" "Am I supposed to 
write that it rained? // One, two, three, 
four, five, six // What rained?"

See you there.......

Next Month Two Readings:

March 19th:  Tara Rebele & Brian Henry
March 26th:  Kent Johnson & Patrick Herron

*Internationalist Books:
http://www.internationalistbooks.org

*Desert City Poetry Series:
http://desertcity.blogspot.com

*Cole Swensen:
http://www.nationalbook.org/nba2004_cswensen.htm

*Chris Vitiello:  http://the_delay.blogspot.com

Contact the DCPS:  Ken Rumble, director:
rumblek at bellsouth dot net

"TRILOGY"
by Cole Swensen


One


            I


The guard peers closely
at the painting. Count.


The fingers. The figures. The
strange sweep from waist


to chest to head. His hand reaches out
within a second of



            II


She sweeps upward. Up
to where the gold sky might


What would the touch
if it did not first


run up against
a man who is in the end a man



            III


She touched the painting
as soon as the guard


turned his back. Respond.
I said turn around. I


screamed, I drowned, I
thought you were home.


I touched the surface of the canvas.
It was I, the sound of salt. And fell
and is still falling through a silent earth.




Two


            I


A deep red in the sky that has nothing
to do with the season but quiets


Outside drinking coffee and wine and watching.
Look, he's speaking, leaning over to his
neighbor.


Look how the lines around his eyes and mouth.
Fleet. Part. What of that. Replies.



            II


She crosses the square in a bright red coat.
Look how they look at her, look up


from their talking. There is no thought
here of leaving. There is no thought.


There are people crossing the square
arm in arm, in threes and fours and alone in 
great numbers.



            III


Joseph Albers, THE INTERACTION OF COLOR, 
1975. I've heard
that no one is ever repeated or ever 
precisely named.


She took the coat off the peg.
Even to herself, she said it was her own.


She crosses the square on her way home.
She will not stop at a cafe, she will not 
talk, she will just go home.




Three


            I


The minute progressions between grey and black
becoming one against the red that stares back.


Because she knows they are watching, she will 
not turn around.
Home is a sound repeated to solid, to 
something that will hold.


Look, there goes a man with his left hand 
left lightly
on the head of his child. There they go.



            II


In the painting, all the reaching hands are 
growing.
In the gallery, everything was green and gold 
and red


Made the sun, though deep, cut through:
Within the door was a window; within the 
window, a jar.


Inside the jar, carefully there, the love 
need not be
assigned in order to fix and ignite.



            III


She had to cross the square in order to get home.
She was one. And one by one, they looked up 
and watched.


When the guard turned around, the gesture was 
gone.
A woman stood back and said no.


She stood back, looking at the painting and 
said isn't it fine
that a woman wearing red could arrive at a 
gold sky. Remind.
Or else in falling. And nothing broke. The rift
shifts open the devout. A finger that 
exceeded number, a
fingertip.


from _Irresponsibility_
by Chris Vitiello


Late November into early December 2004
Shenandoah, VA
Harrisonburg, VA
Springfield, VA
Washington, DC
Durham, NC


Grackles bathe where the drainage
terminates // Typical pull // Pulling so into
      // Between
the low Winter Sun and me
Before the low Winter Sun, their splashes
illuminate

He leaf-blows in church clothes

There really are grackles

Grackles splash a fray
in the drain divot pool behind
which the Sun sets // Position makes this
appearance // Giving
up is never correct
The whitespace goes negative // Choice of 
negation
Event-specific sets of by what
The oak leaves appear brassy
Undoing aperçu

The grate has sunken askew // Here’s why // 
Gerunds
      are now
That school addition is unornamented and, in 
backlit
      shadow,
flat

Shuttle

Iris and Gracie console imaginary horses
A storm threatens // They argue
beneath a lopsided oak
Win it word by word is problematic
Carriage returns

Cadiot: I will do something to someone
The school building rear
looks like a factory contains
also is a factory // Is
Not an implication but a container
His behavior appears portioned and metaphorical
to me as
if he thinks he is being read
A container contained by what it contains
What’s in Firdos Square now?
Argument is the game
It
Grackles bathe and drink in
a drainage pool
Winter Sun setting linear behind
These 2 things, but 1 thing

Making an argument is a surface

Exploitation instructs

This coat does nothing

I know that the dogwood is completely red 
though I cannot see
      it from here

Arafat’s dead // So’s Michelle

“What’s different now?”
versus “Can it be unwritten?”
Only the parts of his body move that
he needs to // He does 1 thing
Miles Davis: “Paraphernalia”

The grackles, the water, their splashing, the 
sunlight
through the splashing
I’m in the plenum too
Iris and Gracie try the swings again
is experience-determined duration
This book is set in 12-point type
I wonder if I’m still alive

The container, the surface, the contents, the
whitespace, the characteristics, the 
durations attached to these
Hocquard: Does writing allow someone to see 
better?
And the words, obviously
Pursuit is pushing and we have
those 2 words // Little gravelly hill
is one way of saying
little gravelly hill
Thank you Hocquard
Once demarcated, how different should/could 
the items be?
He makes shit and carbon-dioxide

The saturated soil sank so unintentional berm

(As I write this) Iris tells Theresa to say 
“No, no it isn’t”
      // Theresa says it
Geometric equipment and what isn’t?
Cobra is a system not a composition
Albiach: would their word be transmitted

That lopsided oak likely lost its crown in 
ice storms
Vicki and I married and Rabin was assassinated
Iris guesses pronunciation at vowels
A signal is a sub-signal < This with this
      or this without this

Returning to the grackles is
different from returning to Firdos Square // 
One symmetry
displaces another
Royet-Journoud: eye pursues its prey / 
shelters behind
      another phrase
The Fallujah offensive is replay and slow-motion
at here // Bettis’s subtlety
Is it information or does it contain information?
Evie’s rectangle

The coverage of the taxi explosion
shows the exploded taxi


Until she gets it right


Nothing elapses at now


Vicki calls from earlier in time


The cartoons did their jobs and were declared 
heroes


The magical rain brings the tree to life


Neither vacuum nor plenum is a negation

I’m getting tough // Poetry is invisible

The red dogwood leaves hang directly at the 
ground
in angled clusters around the base of the
nude depleted buds

The Periodic Table lapses into abominations
One name is as good as another
Amber’s detachment
Minimal and essential, snakes
The projector completely blocks the light source
      between each frame
Nothing’s haphazard and I don’t expect
the dots to be connected // Iris says
“The pinks almost rhyme”

Snakes do
not elaborate
Sunset is a lie

By naming the suspension of judgment you
are missing the point
There were no single grackles // The 
understood it
Grackles is singular

Each dogwood leaf is mottled with blacks, browns,
      and reds // Veins
are yellowish implies the green they were in 
Spring
White, dried blotch perimeters
Lack of end-punctuation is a characteristic //
      Characteristic has of
I agree they’re red

They were probably starlings
It turns out
The noun is a process

I can see three flags from here
Her remote control trees all on the same 
frequency
Devendra Banhart: “Nice People…”
One thing is not any thing

Vicki moved and everything moved // Vicki 
moved everything