Arrangement

In my last post, I griped a bit about trimming a selection of poems. I realized later that everything was in the abstract, and therefore less than useful. I'd like to think that something I say here is useful/usable and not just complaining.

I'll put this exercise up and respond to it myself in the comments later today or tomorrow. Here's the deal: I'm placing four of my poems below. I'd like to think a bit about what's the best order for them, were they all to appear together in a collection (it may be a valid answer to say that they ought not to appear anywhere near each other). I've chosen ones that I think hang together somehow, though they're not intended to be perfect matches. In fact, depending on the overall scheme, one might always be a sore thumb. Here's the names of the poems and a few things that come to mind for me when trying to arrange them-

"A Brief Treatise on Synaesthesia" - first published in nth position. disparate threads never really brought together, even at end. funny/absurd (as opposed to laugh out loud funny). personal. prosy.

"Esteban Peicovich and the Theory of Relativity" - published in Fence. disparate threads brought together through repetition of terms. sociopolitical - range of contemporary. funny/absurd. prosy. semi-complex.

"Hiroshima Mindstream" - first published in chapbook Riff Raff. political - war- WWII. visceral. ekphrasis (though people might not bother looking up the original works). simple to follow. serious.

"Such was the dawn of Freedom" - first published in The Texas Observer. political - war - Iraq. prosy. persona. tight thread revisited through repetition of terms. simple to follow. serious.

When I respond, and what I think would be the useful conversation if others respond, would be to arrange these poems in various ways and talk about how the arrangement itself affects reading. That is to say, putting one poem in front of another might set up a new level of understanding, or provide a transition between two very different elements, or even how two poems next to each other are just so jarring as to break up the reading even of only four poems.

Here's the full texts:

A Brief Treatise on Synaesthesia
For Mark Yakich

Actually, it's nothing to do with synaesthesia,
but I don't know the name for my condition.
That's the real problem, isn't it? I mean I
sometimes mistake a leaf for a running dog
or taste blood when someone scrapes
a pot with a metal spoon. But this
is more serious. I can't tell my tragedy
from my comedy. It all began with Hamlet,
which, as we all know, is hilarious. No.
It began with Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood,
which, as we all know, is mournful.
Your latest book, The Importance of Peeling
Potatoes in Ukraine (which the unfamiliar
will think I have invented, but it is quite
beautiful)(that didn't actually confirm
its reality, did it?), is blurbed as a work that can
"re-envision solemnity in terms other than
lamentation, protest, and memorial." I want
that ability. No. I want to know when
I'm using that ability. People sometimes laugh
at my guy-with-AIDS poem. I made a woman
cry with the one about the girl who turns
into a fish. There are apparently several voices
that come naturally to me, but I can't tell them
apart. They don't come as voices, you see,
but as vibrations in my jaw, near to the ear,
as though I'd been struck. Whether my wife shakes
from laughter or anger, orgasm or sadness,
I'm never certain. What chance do I have with words?
I wrote these ones because I am unable
to be there in person to hit you. Would you
give yourself a papercut for me? This page will do
just fine. Depending on your thoughts in response,
I have a selection of sharp and blunt objects
at my disposal. As always, I wish you all
the best, JeFF


Esteban Peicovich and the Theory of Relativity

In a College Station hotel room, the Argentine
Esteban Peicovich and I are clumsily juggling
balls of light labeled “book deal,” “interview,”
“when to return to the Academic Building”
when suddenly, the room is a moving train car
and I am outside, watching the ball of light
streak out of control. If Esteban Peicovich
turns on a flashlight, could we see all the way
to the end of this conversation?

Meanwhile, in a shack on an unnamed island,
Travis with no last name translates Castro's
slurred invectives for national security. Rhetoric
escalates like a train...or a Roadrunner cartoon:
The US puts up a sign that says, “No More Castro!”
Castro puts up a sign that say, “Castro can't read!”
Bush holds up a book about a goat. If Esteban
Peicovich stands in front of a clock, would the gap
between the Americas disappear?

Meanwhile, at Revolution Cafe in downtown Bryan,
a woman strums a guitar, but the railroad crossing
won't stop dinging, dinging, dinging, at dissonance
with her voice. Several miles down the track,
students are praying in front of the Academic Building,
but the clock tower won't stop its digital ringing,
ringing, ringing, at dissonance with their faith. If
Esteban Peicovich leaves Argentina at the speed of light,
at what point do they all meet?

Meanwhile, in New York City, someone is playing
a conspiracy theorist's documentary about 9/11.
It contains numerous documents, but no reliable facts.
The applause is loud as church bells...or a building
collapsing. Esteban Peicovich tosses them a ball of light
which asks, “If conspiracies can hold weight, or the gravity
of a situation prevent the truth from ever appearing,
could we train ourselves to stand on black holes,
and not be ripped apart?


Hiroshima Mindstream

One side of the canvas is lying

No line recovers so smoothly

So quickly

After this multicolored devastation

Babble of Hiroshimatic Japanese
An instant overflown
From 31,000 feet the impact site is small as a marble, or the bomb is small as a marble, or the marble flattens and expands to cover the ground in glass, a Borgesian map of its own destruction
Cobblestones become Venice
Pompeii streets fused with soles

This is not the roundness of a marble
No karma, no chakra
This is the door burst as the eyes of a woman looking at Little Boy
The floor fallen away as the jaw of a boy radiated, all teeth and roof of mouth and too soon this roof too will rot
Encapsulation shifts impossible as
skin bubbles and organs no longer hold
their place
Not sciomancy but anthropomancy

This is the memory betrayed

Memory recognizing itself in broken mirrors, recognizing the mirrors are not really broken

Perhaps this is not a lie

Perhaps I need it to be a lie


Notes: The phrase “Cobblestones become Venice” is from Carol Mavor’s March 31, 2006 presentation “’Summer Was Inside the Marble’: Marguerite Duras’s and Alain Resnais’s Hiroshima Mon Amour,” during which images from the film juxtaposed themselves with a postcard in front of me picturing Keith Linton’s mixed media piece Mindstream. Sciomancy is divination with the shades, or shadows, of the dead. Anthropomancy is divination via the entrails of sacrificial human victims.


Such was the dawn of Freedom

We gathered outside the city to bury
dates in the sand and would come back
in the evening to eat them warm. We
gathered secretly to study, to debate
the differences between Sunni, Shiite,
Christian, Jew, America, South America,
America, Europe, America, World.
We gathered near the remains of Babylon,
not ruins but memories still clinging
to the earth. We gathered in the homes
of friends who had lost a father or a brother,
taken in the night, some unaware,
some knowing too well this story
has been repeated in all times and places:

A headline on February 2, 1893 “ANOTHER
NEGRO BURNED;” the purges of Warsaw,
Krakow, Dachau, Paris; Cortes and Montezuma
slaying sun after sun; India under Britain;
China under Japan; Mothers are still marching
in the Plaza; and we still walk unseen.

The History of the World is kept
in an old room on unlit desks,
in piles of paper higher than any man
can see. At the very bottom of each
lies the truth about this or that
tragedy: a list of names, relationships,
some memories, a difference,
and a handful of dates.