Eulogy for Vertical Elegy
To Sam Truitt
indomitable spirit
wears pencil
thin moustache,
upper upper lip,
epithelial cluster & dust
bristle bracket
history channel’s rasputin
..........................----------------------------------------
[dis sip at ive str u c t
u r
...............................e
........................................s ]
;
with Kythe Heller*
Dear semicolon,...............................................................just once give me a page
.......................................................................................of my own;
.......................................................................................& I cannot promise
.......................;...............................................................& I cannot explain
..................................................without words we’ll make trouble, offerings to an open field
..................................................as of yet it has no shape, yet the outline of asymmetries
..................................................demands a visual acuity willing to trespass
pure blankness does not yet
possess even the outline of trespass
they think necessary; so here we have—instead of talking points, cupped hands
.............................................;
.....................one of us set fire to a man sleeping
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
.....................a man begins & ends at an airport
.....................we rehearsed the percussion of tumbling luggage by—applauding
............................................;
.....................a bird flew through my body
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
.....................indeterminate weather followed a woman’s convective processions
.....................her sudden presence has always been a secret barometer for meteorologists
...........................................;
.....................who can keep you out when this whole broken world is your home
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
.....................some notice unattended persons standing curbside
.....................they could be reported at any moment were they to go noticed
.....................they are not seen & are not reported & they stand, are not waiting
................................................;
......................I ran from home
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
.....................someone said we aren’t anywhere
.....................saying this made us believe it
.....................you could hear all the ghosts leave his shoulders
.....................you could feel their wake as they flew to the open tarmac
..................................“I give you your posture,” they sang
..................................“I give you your breath”
..................................“I give you the language of strangers,” they sang
..................................“I give you deafness from the hiss of your steel, osculating patterns”
..................................“I give you nothing & everything”
.................................I give you respite from the illusion of destination, burden of what
was never there
*written as part of performative ritual and ensuing correspondence; Heller's work that
is cited appears in Immolation (Monk Honey Press, 2008).
Kidney Poem
Commercial airliner taxis in my penis
Has gotten clearance for takeoff from the people in the tower
I wake up with penises in my eyes
Pointy penises, pointillist penises that fuck up
my scenery of all the other penises floating
more or less impressionistically in my eyes,
bamboo penises, cardboard penises, steel penises that look like I beams
silly putty penises, young man penises that curl weird, that you don’t exactly
know what to do with, older man aggressive penises that keep jabbing
like managers at insert service industry outlet.
Wasn’t born of a father per se
Bellicose masturbator with baby fetish
Some indeterminate sex and 22 healthy chromosomes later,
here’s the morning:
...............Man wakes in Helsinki, tags wife one last time that night, dreams of warmer climate
...............during phallatio
..............Woman wakes in Clearwater, dreams of waking in somebody else’s waterbed
..Woman wakes in Manhattan, dreams of waking whoever is in her bed, asking her
..only her
..Man wakes in Detroit, dreams of fucking his boss, it’s so early he can’t figure out
..Boy wakes in Boston, dreams of becoming a boss like his daddy who fucks whoever he wants
..Girl wakes in Tokyo, dreams of getting out of the city and becoming her own boss in the country so she can fuck herself
..Woman wakes in Nice, dreams of a grandma in Idaho being mercilessly tagged by husband
..Man wakes in Denver, dreams of making some money because money protects you from assholes who fuck you
.............Woman wakes in Clearwater, dreams of bombarding another woman’s vagrant asshole
.............with love
.............Man wakes in Detroit, dreams of fucking his employees, so early he already knows
.............he’ll do it by lunchtime
.............Man wakes in Boston, dreams of paying less for sex and how these girls are like
.fucking corpses
Girl wakes in Kumano, dreams of going to Tokyo where all that nuke fallout is cloaked by glass and fucking
Man wakes in Olympia, dreams of penises for about ten min, then falls back asleep,
kidneys with hammer handles
pounding at the walls
David Wolach is editor of Wheelhouse Magazine & Press and a participant in Nonsite Collective. His most recent books are Prefab Eulogies Volume 1: Nothings Houses (BlazeVox [books], 2010), Hospitalogy (Scantily Clad Press), and book alter(ed) (Ungovernable Press, 2009). A former union organizer and installation artist, Wolach's work often begins as site-specific and interactive performance and ends up as shaped, written language. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming from Aufgabe, 5_Trope, Cannot Exist, Little Red Leaves, No Tell Motel, and Elective Affinities: An International Anthology of New Poetry. Critical work on the poetics of spatial practice will appear soon in Jacket and Sibila: Poesia y Cultura (Brazil). He's currently at work with composer Arun Chandra on a 4-channel sound-text composition for four voices, a set of pieces which includes "modular arterial cacophony" from Occultations. Wolach is professor of text arts, poetics, and aesthetics at The Evergreen State College, and visiting professor in Bard College's Workshop In Language & Thinking.
