Béatrice Machet # 1- It's an Ocean

(Béatrice Machet # 1--  It' an Ocean)     

Hi everybody! happy to be here, glad to reconnect with Magdalena and thanks to Kit who launched the exchanges !

This poem was written after visiting an art exhibition : Les mondes flottants (floating worlds), biennale d’art contemporain 2017, Lyon ; and especially inspired by Hans Haacke’s works. (pictures to be found on the internet, just google Hans Haacke biennale de lyon)

but also a kind of answer to Kit’s words:

"you have to respect yourself to get going

we'll be the music here

Day Dot

it isn't even yet

so we tend to begin" 

I wish you all a very happy New Year from the Chicago area.

Below is the text, but I also post a picture of my screen as the poem appears in my file, since the blog-format doesn't allow it to be faithfully reproduced! 

It’s an ocean

it’s about water that lets me float

                             that supports me

It’s this everlasting flow as continuity in tune with waves and their  le n  g  t   h    s

it’s a never ending stream with no stop whatever rhythm is launched

it’ s about what is contained but gives shape           about moving forms

thus it’s about being both content and container

a satisfying fulfilling feeling

 

I wear it and it                                                      wears me        the ocean                       wears me      the deep deep deep deep            inner world                                                                                      deep inner                      inner                                                                                                                                                         world

I wear it and it                                                     

and it                                                                                                                                                         wears me

the deep deep deep

inner world

I wear it

is it inside the                                                                                               b                                        inside the body or outside                                                                                                                                     experience

is it experience                                                                                                           of the body or is

life within                                                                                                                                            ithin death                                       

is there any                                                                                                                                 border any boundary between

feeling                                                                                                                                                     and thought

is it what we call the mystery of incarnation

 

Magdalena Ball #1 - a storm would have shook it free

a storm would have shook it free

(response to Kit Kelen’s “The First Post”)

it was a circular start

somewhere in the middle

as if a new name would 

change the back story

my bookshelf fell over

in the storm

the pile had its own aesthetic

told us something about ourselves

our atmosphere

the random joy that cuts us into segments

this wasn’t the first

truth be told

when I pretended to understand

the darkening landscape

a quick glance at your brow

your knitting hands

language enough

the widening gap 

who could pay, who couldn’t 

that rapid climb to power

every rung of the ladder crumbling

beneath his swelling legs

you cried in frustration

worked in a fever

ignoring the sunlight that woke 

the hormones

I wanted the world

to be real

no matter the stark logic 

of spin

the trees were humming

silently, a chaos growing

just beneath the bark

that was the beginning

Cui Yuwei #1--Key Words

Cui Yuwei #1--Key Words

Key Words

Written and Self-Translated into Chinese by Cui Yuwei

sorting out my poems of the year

extract some key words:

me

mom

daughter

students in my class

passengers on the bus

foreigners living in my city

Bukowski

beggars

the disabled

peasant workers

prostitutes

and feces

pee

fart

《關鍵詞》

整理本年度詩選

關鍵詞如下

自己

媽媽

女兒

學生

乘客

住在中國的外國人

不考斯基

乞丐

殘疾人

農民工

妓女

還有

屎

尿

屁

Kit Kelen #1 - the first post

first post

(by means of which the garden is called

so we begin to tend) 

 

the first post

must have fallen

not from the clear blue

...it's a storm would have shook it free

it lay suggestively till took up with...

sturdy, apt for purpose

someone notched it

like a string around a finger

but you won't remember that

...answer to a question

first of many yet to ask

first post suggested task, improvement

perhaps one was speechless with it

then it was a kind of writing

*

start out beating them off with a stick

could turn snake

you'd lean it with the wind

who was first to measure with this?

who was first to point?

whack! it was spear

and propped a sagging idea - roof

then pike with severed head upon

how did we get there?

*

once someone considered this a clock

and took a sun to shine that way

so the rain was for us

smug to sit indoors

and read the first post for the day

might be hollow by now

drummy to tap

if ants have been

or borer

*

you pick the thing up today

see a fence strung wired

in mind's eye

cattle must respect

it's timber cut

deaf as ... who knows?

no one has spoken

I like to imagine a trumpet myself

and the walls go up with it

*

once it came three times a day

telegrams not counting

you see yourself as souvenir

and horses with this haste

read back and see

in all of before

a clamour to be

stout piece

cylindrical or square

so fit

*

not chapter

but each

beginningish again

takes certain set of mind to start

for drumroll

beat some skin

(as firstness is all relative

and post may be referred pain)

no idle boast

Jason's ark

is Eve's tree

or simply were we sleeping?

*

it is a size of paper too

think of with all despatch

you moor to this

so list

make known

I use a post-it

(spare the dog)

recalls me

to the page

*

mind out for splinters

where the thoughts are rough

take each next for bulletin

far flit for

clobber on the scone

as belly in with wet fish

first, plural -

see lined up like fingers

so Fido might make territory

you won't get out of these paws

this is at one end of the world

where Monkey came to prove

churchless pagans

sit under one

like Knowledge at Barcaldine

cloned so now the struggle's over

*

a poke in the eye with too

(burnt kind)

you could joust

or tie tomatoes

I will call my journal this

will spruik fresh oil

ought to come out of an egg

don't all?

*

come ye faithful

Christmas is gone

now it's line on the left

one cross post each

hadn't thought death would undo so many

*

strike it in the ledger then

fling of exclamation

and the first post pointed too

bone white

could die from thinking too much on that

or of thirst out here

drive one into the ground

still nothing?

stockwhip and blanket

and tie one on

dig here

don't you know Wills was queer?

*

the picture everywhere unfinished

we might still explore

thick stratum

I'll lean upon this later

just a few bars

for the as-yet unborn

although I know the dark of others

mine is summer so

see sky bright

where the live post points

ever ever up

*

still we're piled for firewood

we're the ones dreamt

run around to here

like bones that broke

and now all ash

like bones that broke

my fall

*

every post a present

and never all unwrapped

first past

and one chair less

but we're not here to vote

I take up this office

stiff as

(sit on this)

when is a stake a pillar?

*

as an ex-

is post-me

post like a ghost

(the late whoever)

morning after

and it's all aftering from now on

happily

or you tell me

(one could come to resent

having to read)

post poem

instance

what's to do?

when all the world was tilled in this

*

you have to respect yourself to get going

we'll be the music here

Day Dot

it isn't even yet

so we tend to begin