history and truth
Three Poems by KJP Garcia
Three Poems
by
KJP Garcia
Stop By
Did you ring the doorbell?
This house is your house –
so to speak.
Open so long as you let yourself be heard.
But locks must be engaged, shutters closed
–there are some
that do harm –
Villains are not simply storylines, costumes, secret identities, powers
but will and win if not on guard
Feel free to come by, as (is) possible, you’ve come by before so unknown
So entrance was removed.
Time, this, as always will be different.
Afford
If on verge then do well to continue
Ceiling leaks, drops break in.
Mattress steals space from living.
And this teetering persists?
Make a go of it
– rest doesn’t go well
Fall, jump, get pushed
-expire-
afford a balance to repair’s value.
Which Side
Which side of the Hudson is for Verlaine
And which for Rimbaud after the break-up?
Not world enough / strong enough
to open petals
lay out
lyricism
illuminations
the way New York
can
with all the best pharmaceutical grade . . .
And two rivers and upstate to run to and Jersey
ready to back pocket
the written
on train out of here
to calm down.
So, Seine, which side is for Warhol and which for Basquiat
When done / decorated enough
to have back what is held close /
unwanted?
Poetic Statement: Experience is a plurality of convergences, interruptions, digressions, departures. These occurrences are the fragments which create larger memories and the narratives one attempts to convey to others. The closer one comes to examining the past, the more one notices how the present constantly interferes. The narratives one creates from the keepsakes of yesterday are shattered and forged again with new data – sensations, perceptions, insights, exemptions, the heard-words, the read-words, the thought-words, the dream-words, the images and ideas of having been inserted into a life of disturbances.
Bio: Kenyatta Jean-Paul Garcia is the author of This Sentimental Education, ROBOT and Yawning on the Sands.
No End by Céline Anglemeyer-Harding
No End
by
Céline Anglemeyer-Harding
(for LFD)
Once you sink,
once you take that vertiginous leap
into the chill inky abyss of the night;
you’re afraid at first,
there’s just too much.
And I knew I could never leave that darkness.
There’s no going up,
only unfathomably lower into obscurity.
And no one could get down to where I was;
there was just too much night around me.
On your way down
to the Cimmerian void,
you realize that the earth is dead anyway.
We’re all just slimy barnacles
sucking on its fat, revolting carcass,
eating its viscera and feeding off of its toxic miasma.
But what is worse
lifelessly performing in a sideshow of fetid inertia
or falling too far into the night —
past the ineffectual nothingness.
There was nothing left for me in that putrid carnival anyway.
Crazy or not,
scared or not.
Artistic Statement: Destroy everything you know. Quit your job. Quit your school. Quit your boyfriend. Quit your life. If it feels good, it’s not wrong. Nothing matters. Nothing exists. Nothing is sacred. Nothing is impossible. Everything is a lie. We’re all going to die anyway. If it’s not shocking or ugly, it’s not worth looking at. If there’s no blood, no pain, no shame; there’s no subjugation, no catharsis, no purpose. Fuck it, before it fucks you.
Bio: Experimental underground filmmaker, Céline Anglemeyer-Harding, has written and directed several feature films including the the neo-noir snuff classic, I Shit On God; the controversial documentary, Hashtag Dilation and Curettage, featuring footage of a woman live-tweeting her abortion; and the Razzie Award nominated romantic comedy, Just Because He’s In You, Doesn’t Mean He’s Into You. Her entire body of work has been banned in Canada. This is her first (and hopefully, last) poem.
The Art Of Being Nobody
The Art Of Being Nobody
by
Carl Paul Henneman
It is not, what it is
You’ll never change what it is
If we did what it is we want/
Bet these guys would stop touching kids
This world makes you feel crazy
Like you’re the only one seeing this
There’s a homeless man down the street
He got no insurance; he’s real sick
Whistling while we walk by
Oughta/ give him a roundhouse kick
& it’s only getting colder
Even though the ice is getting thin
Live a life but are we living?
Heart atrophy & we’re all in
Bought the fear; just hoping for change
We all know something needs to flip
As the story/s getting older
Anticipate apocalypse
I will be what I am
No one person owns
A fail-safe identity
Write on that tape
Over your mouth
Continue to laugh
Till the truth comes out
Can keep riding this bus
But it ain’t changing its route
Don’t play a part
We never were any more
The Poetics of Immersion
Immersion Poetry
The Poetics of Immersion
out(be)come
be(in)ginnings
Sentiment and Sensibility
by Kenyatta Jean-Paul Garcia
Withinside of experience is poetics
an unhidden poetry runs its course through occurrences
a further unhidden poetry has been handed down and lived in for centuries in myth, fable, folklore, philosophy, religion, worldview, and other notions often marked as ‘culture’
images have existed
images exist
images created are tangled with past images
ideas are images to be
images are ideas had
images are ideas being had
the image and idea (of the image) is the center of the poem
even when the poem has no center or focus, the image/idea is
a direction of a poem is an image
a whole piece can turn on a preposition
into (for example) is an image/idea immersed into the wordery of the poem
the wordery is the added imagery of words surrounding the essential image
a room described is often done so just to place in or out of it the agent or patient of the lines
….
a poem finds its place immersed into other poetry at all points
no words exist alone
there is no alone with words
a single word is a combination of concepts, idea, and (what) sensiment imag(in)es
sense is a two-way conduit for sentiment
sensiment(al) is the poet’s stock of ingredients, materials, detritus, etc for poetry
sensiment is found art
sensiment is art forced upon artist via life and the image/idea occurring and being processed
….
the poem occurs within the overall web of poetics/wordery/sensiment
poem as written/being written is an act of immersion (at times invasion)
poem inserts into web of myth and history and truth and wish and current events and the POP
the pop the today’s need for myth with truth being subjected to wish
….
the poem once inserted into the umbrella of wordery undergoes the next step which is to be immersed into the reader
the reader more properly defined is the perceiver of poetry
the perceiver once in contact with the poem is in the poem is withinside the occurrence of the piece
minimalism, distillation and small vocabulary further allow for an enmeshment with the poem once the perceiver is immersed in the poem
the poem immersed in the experience of the perceiver
….
immersion poetry is NOT conceptual poetry
concept is but an aspect of/step towards idea
immersion poetry is not found poetry
all poetry is found in the cosmic and psychic language of the real and irreal/subjunctive worlds
possibility is its own myth
wish is a pantheon governing the will
….
immersion poetry enters this world wrapped in other wordery
it comes through and with all art and all pop
it comes with myth attached
it comes via quote via reference naked but for the air it has relationship with
it comes knowing it itself is at times nothing other than a paraphrase a para-image para-idea
it gives room for continuation
for communion
it gives
it is conversation
it hears
poems hear
it is called to respond
it responds to call
it calls for response
respond and correspond is immersion
….
it does by being allowed to do
to do is to be received
perception is reception where poetry is concerned
where poetry has flourished in its immersion
as but a petal coming from and returning to a mythic center
ALTPOETICS 