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M.T. Karthik

~ works from 1977 – 2017

M.T. Karthik

Tag Archives: 1995

what am I doing here?

12 Saturday Oct 1996

Posted by mtk in poetry, S.F.

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Tags

1995, doing, here, Karthik, m.t., mtk, poem, sf, what

 

What on earth am I doing here?
seeking control of the wrong things.
… just seeking control

lost

in a stupid place
in a stupid, stupid place,
lost.

 

mtk, SF, 1996

writers, directors and actors

25 Monday Dec 1995

Posted by mtk in poetry, S.F.

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1995, actor, define, definitions, director, Karthik, m.t., mtk, poem, writer

The writer says, “This drink is cold and wet.”
The director says, “Give me more.  How cold? How wet?”
The actor grabs, drinks and throws the glass against the wall.

mtk, sf, 1995

a riddle

22 Wednesday Nov 1995

Posted by mtk in poetry, S.F.

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1995, Karthik, m.t., mtk, poem, riddle, sf

A riddle: what am I type

I wrote this before you
ever got to know me. before.
before.  I am writing it now.

mtk, SF 1995

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

15 Wednesday Nov 1995

Posted by mtk in clips, conceptual art, journalism, press clips, reviews, S.F.

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*surface, 1995, 95, architecture, art, fashion, Francisco, Karthik, m.t., magazine, mtk, mural, paint, Rigo, Rigo 95, San, thyagarajan, thyagarajian

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

31 Tuesday Oct 1995

Posted by mtk in poetry, S.F.

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1995, Karthik, Memorandum, mtk, poem

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

10 Sunday Sep 1995

Posted by mtk in poetry, S.F.

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1995, baile, es, Karthik, LA, mtk, poem, UN, vida

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

palindrome, a poem

08 Friday Sep 1995

Posted by mtk in poetry, S.F.

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1995, Karthik, mtk, palindrome, poem

life is acheworthy

burning sometimes

and sugary

is time

noverything

feels

noverything

time is

sugary and

sometimes burning

acheworthy is life

 

 

 

 

shedding, 1995

25 Friday Aug 1995

Posted by mtk in poetry, S.F.

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1995, Karthik, mtk, poem, shedding

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

10 Saturday Jun 1995

Posted by mtk in Austin, poetry, TX

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Tags

1995, austin, for Julie, late on the Interstate, poem, tx

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)

 

Answering Machine Message

25 Thursday May 1995

Posted by mtk in poetry, S.F.

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1995, answering, Francisco, Karthik, M.T.san, machine, message, mtk, poem, time

 

(beep)
I had a question for you about truth
But the problem with questions about truth is that they are always linked to their

Time …

so now I will go sit and listen to the clock tick.

<click>

 

mtk, SF, 1995

God Soup

13 Saturday May 1995

Posted by mtk in poetry, S.F.

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1995, god's, Karthik, m.t., poem, soup

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

10 Wednesday May 1995

Posted by mtk in Arizona, poetry

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1995, andy, Arizaona, dog, Karthik, mtk, poem, wynona

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

22 Wednesday Feb 1995

Posted by mtk in poetry

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Tags

1995, a, ecuador, Karthik, madre, mi, mtk, poem, quito

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

26 Thursday Jan 1995

Posted by mtk in poetry, travel

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Tags

1995, ecuador, Karthik, m.t. karthik, mtk, poem, quito, tourism

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

17 Tuesday Jan 1995

Posted by mtk in poetry, S.F.

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Tags

1995, coinage, gibberish, Karthik, mtk, poem, portmanteau, san francisco, sf, untitled

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

M.T. Karthik

This blog archives early work of M.T. Karthik, who took every photograph and shot all the video here unless otherwise credited.

Performances and installations are posted by date of execution.

Writing appears in whatever form it was originally or, as in the case of poems or journal entries, retyped faithfully from print.

all of it is © M.T. Karthik

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