The Pursuit of Types

Tags

, , , , , , ,

The pursuit of types – harmonically convergent patterns – is invariably a looping process which is infinite in scope and variety.

So naming the loop at any given point is dangerous, at worst and wrong (i.e. the path toward falsity) at best.

mtk, SF, 1996

Epilogue

The pursuit of truth cannot involve types or patterns because these are statements of limitation.

Raktan

Tags

, , , , , ,

Raktan walks down the street with his handly pocketed pants on and wanders lusting for rimshots of snapper snares

where he walks no one smells his hands or his socklessness

wrapping paper blows by

stalwart experts seem to have a grasp of the situation

reading bookish tomes of erectifying lecterned credo

Camto sees his lustfulness

and comments Raktan

has a certain “ness”ness to his carried luggage of a walking gait

snapping at the rippled waves of negrilled nighteous narcoses arising all around him

decepticons of snow-laden reams of opinion

he covers his ears and eyes and his nostrils with the fingers of both his glovenlies

whispering

to no one in particular

far goes the capital

of no

south

Rigo 95: More Marlboro Men Than Maos in China …, *surface,1995

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This was a very disappointing edit and when it appeared, I was enraged. My name was spelled wrong – and it’s the third typo on the page!

The first is in the image where the images of his work are labelled, “(Rigo)” – which isn’t his name, and shows the overactive hand of the newly minted fashion magazine’s editors –

whose next immediate typo is in the HEADLINE – an extra apostrophe where it should be “Maos”. The piece is also edited considerably from what I submitted and the editors took liberties adding and removing text that changed the meaning of full paragraphs. But anyway here is how it ran:

I began a friendship and apprenticeship with Rigo after this November interview, in the year 1996, which lasted ten years.

Memorandum

Tags

, , , ,

To: William P. Martin

From: M.T. Karthik

re: poetry

I don’t need an agent so much as an organizer.

geoffrey goldman, goldberg, goldstein, goldy gold …

The poems should be organized into categories. All the love poems together. The war poems and death  poems may be trysted with the questions that tether life and death to infinity but they must remain separate from the personal reflections to friends (save elegies of course which may be included for their gravity)

Poems on the nature of fruits, plums and vegetables (not fruits) must not fall under their own category.

Poems about places which include foreign locales (places that aren’t home) should go together but ought to be subcategorized between personal home poems and foreign locale poems in order to separate identity from geography.

These too (2) should be together and all of the groupings should have titles although individual works may be left untitled. Parenthetically, only one kind of poem may stand alone (although it may serve to introduce or conclude)

cold, alone, aloof and barren of the sensation of taste

or of beauty

alone

shall stand the poems about poems

themselves

la vida es un baile

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

And in the only manoeuvre known to us

the steps seem limp and lifeless

for some they are full of purpose

but for most they are darkly lit

footprints

cut from cardboard and numbered

to guide the unwilling feet

lonely in their pursuit of peace

to have the choice

to elect

to not have to lead at all

simply to have the peace of mind to

be able to follow or

even just to stand still

and quiet momentarily

and listen to the music

the beautiful music

shedding, 1995

Tags

, , , ,

we are born with millions of tiny hooks

cilia

they reach out from our skin

grasping and grapnelling

to anyone and anything

for influence

learning (in order):

mimic

critic

synthetic

at last we learn to comb our skins

clean

of hooks and hairs

so we might proceed naked

each day with our job

the happy business

of dying

late on the Interstate

Tags

, , , , ,

late on the Interstate

leaving the Crown and Anchor behind us

and not yet in the Continental Club

between KGSR and KUT

I heard you speak beyond your words

for just half a second

It was like the voice I heard in Kenny’s kitchen

that time

the disembodied sound of love

unrealized and pains misunderstood

for just half a second I heard it

my only real evidence of phantoms yet

and I told you I heard it

but that you could take my hand and walk away

How happy I was when you pulled my hand

my arm, my whole body

up and over

and tugged me running breathlessly

through Klimten fields

of dandelion

and tall, green, flowing grass

barefoot

sweet and naked

sweet Phebe

stripped of the clothes we wore

in that car

late on the Interstate

and the lipstick you applied

outside the doors

of the Continental Club

 

 

(for Julie)

 

God Soup

Tags

, , , , ,

we are all swimming in God’s soup
sometimes we like to splash the others
sometimes to dunk them
even though we know the spoon is coming

Sometimes we lay on our backs in God’s soup,
floating.
(on occasion we can catch His eye)

Sometimes we flag our arms at Him
hoping to be seen
and sometimes, in so doing, we sink

Wynona

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Andy’s dog Wynona is a knockout chocolate lab with a great temperament albeit an obsession with fetching.

and she reminds me of the tiny, white hairs on the black legs of my jeans that betray your dog

who slept with me last night whiile we dreamed of being in bed with you.

What it would say if it could would be delicious. It would slip around your lips like fingers tongues and teeth and cry at its loss of identity. Longing for it and whispering just the one thing:

“Give it to me”

a mi madre

Tags

, , , , , , , ,

in the future poets will spend a long time learning another language first.

They’ll study grammar and vocabulary and rules and regulations.

They’ll watch television in foreign channels.

water

will splash iodized out of their plastic cups

Then

they will write

so somebody will listen

and they’ll cry at night

weeping whimpering mewlish (crocodile?) tears

into a stuffed pillow

begging the world

(or at least publishers)

for a TRANSLATOR.

mtk1995, Quito, Ecuador

tourismo (across the americas), 1995

Tags

, , , , , , ,

first we choke

we cough and sneeze as poisonous air fills our lungs

in the streets we learn to hold our breaths as buses pass

then we suck

on lozenges and candies hoping to soothe our parched throats

we are tired of tepid, plastic water

then we spend a day with the Indians

we eat fruit

we laugh and barter

but for a few books and a few dollar bills

we see how far we are

from the earth

and soon the agua linda tastes sweet

like strawberries from the California valley

mtk, Quito, Ecuador, January 26, 1995

(untitled), January 1995

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

would you be the one who holds my crundle of bastioning stoppards

when I am unable to go further into the gleamingly simple predicated suffixes

and hardened arteriole cavities of me

never

umpteen aged wrestling teacherdly cunts withered armlessly in time-tentacled illusiveates

cramming into stuffard-sized cratchets of nistik, mungley bramstoked prits

my own bringle of stolping camelized simmersoups was never englingly rude enoughage

sinjo slaythed the jargon