Sunday 13 August 2006

POETRY

"By poetry I understand the search for the inalienable meaning of things" (Roland Barthes, Mythologies).

As poetry... when we read as poetry... pleasure being taken... a line, a phrase, a movement, act or image... we bring meaning to the world. Poetry is not a line, but an effect caused by you.

We create true by positioning Truth. Place Truth at the end of your search.

It goes without saying... the destruction of Truth may be found in the supposition that our superficial relationships and daily chatter bear any worth. Any advent of Nature signifies an attainment of Truth, and thus the destruction of the superficial, making insignificant our language. In Truth and Nature, there is no separation between experience and understanding, no need for reconstruction.

I am in The Middle Place. The place of all wishes. Today, I wish for facility.


FIELD OF PLEASURE

I am making an investment in Green Lake.
I am bringing poetry into the field of pleasure.
"Pleasure must be taken" (Jonathan Culler, on Barthes).
Take this from me.

Is it enough to immerse yourself in life?

"Abolish the false opposition of practical life and contemplative life" (Roland Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text).


BELIEF

To believe in Green Lake, to collectively believe, in a ritual circling. A social integration. A bourgeois pastime. Strolling. The promenade. The taking of air. The pace.

Vultures! Sleepers! Hedonists!

Bienvenue Au Promenade du Lac Vert!

A post-modern bourgeois, the promenade is still the place to exhibit social and physical superiority. Seen and admired, one in the same.

The nobility are absent.
The poor are absent.
The artists are absent.

Courtships cancel courtships.

Green Lake, Jewel, Darling, Filter,
What are the risks of real life?

The stench of the lake is unavoidable.
Nature has another thing to do.


LANGUAGE

Green Lake as a form of communication, a language, a system of meaning.

ambivalence : imbalance
movement : murder
the circle : the self
flirtation : infatuation
the cycle : the center
speed : fatigue
skirt : skirt


CIRCLERS

Circlers belong to the working class. They are a tax paying mass.
Circlers have money enough to live.
Their wants outweigh their gains.
They are great worriers with rigid schedules.
They do disproportionate amounts of harm to good.
Circlers adopt habits that aid in public deception.
Exercise pacifies their search.
They grow mute as they grow old.


MEANING

Are we stuck with propagation of the species
as the meaning of life?
Or are we liberated to it?

Has our ability to communicate transcended the physical?
Or have we come back to the body?

Has our language become multiplicitous?
Or are we still erasing it?

Lisa, Circler… Lisa, whose living room this is…
My sense of courtesy softens my point.
What I mean for you is responsibility.
Your mother, your sister, your nephew,
your 4-year old niece who just today
learned the word disgusting,
which for her is tomato, peach…
I mean responsibility.
Take my hand. Confess with me.

You are a capsule.
You are beauty.

If this fills you, give it song.
If this makes you, prove me wrong.

Is this my task, to mean for you?

What pleasure do you take?
What text? What poetry?


AURORA

Here is your shadow,
Borealis, the Avenue.
Your feather,
just a meter away.

Here is your warning,
your spirit and torch.
Here the jumping goat.
The breath of brave soldiers.


CIRCLING RULES

While strolling, a gentleman should acknowledge acquaintances enthusiastically, whispering disapproval behind their back. The acknowledgment should be boisterous. A hoot or a shout. If the acquaintance is a lady, one should whistle or wave. After lengthy monologue, a gentleman should request a lady's e-mail address. A gentleman may circle the lake no more than 10 times a day. He may sit on a bench no more than twice for a total of ten minutes. A gentleman should maintain a pleasant expression and keep his hands along his body. If his physique is worth exhibiting and the weather is warmer than 75F, he may remove his shirt. If his physique is not worth exhibiting and the weather is warmer than 90F, he may also remove his shirt.

While strolling, a lady should make her every imperfection known by way of specialty active wear (sports bras, lycra pants and the like). It is acceptable to talk and laugh loudly with comrades by way of cell phone. If a lady passes a female friend, she should acknowledge her with shouts and hugs. A lady should ignore the gentlemen on the path. After several passes, it is possible to wave or smile to a gentleman of interest. Only after successive visits, separated by at least a week, is it acceptable to approach a gentleman. If walking after dark, a lady should carry a key in her fist. A lady may circle the lake no more than 3 times a day. She should never sit upon a bench.


GREEN LAKE POEM #1

I have written the first Green Lake poem, "b lind circ le."
It segregates what I see from what I taste.

b lind circ le

there is a thread in our center
it might be death
or sleeping
or a seed whose will
is soiled

it's growing larger &larger
&yet each point encircling
stands oblivious to the next
a lone intellect calling

each point is perfectly bearing
&unneeding of a center

the distance between any one point
&the next is infinity
not just because
one cannot see the other
but because nothing connects

there's a word for this
it is night
the word for destroying hope
that is what we are making
a theatre of the bleak
an impossibility

the question is not
what are we going to do
to cause a ripple
but how can we ruin the world
in a way that unearths truth
that ignites our conviction

do not turn away from the mirror
establish a light
vow a right of returns

nothing you can do is enough

2 august 2006