After Michael Palmer (iv)

This time I won't start with any particular MP poem. Instead, I'll just write a poem as though I were imitating MIchael Palmer.

Your praise! I've kicked the ladder down.
My dive will have to be very precise.

If you could notate that sucker you'd have something.
As it is, you got nothing.

Said the foolish person. But he was right.
A 360 leaves you facing the same way.

Now a 370...
Then the connection was lost.

Broken Symmetries (After MP 3)

Church bells announce a fire in the photo lab.
"Cultural Studies" is soon there with his buckets.

"Egg Roll" watches from the sidelines.
"Weather-Beaten Skeleton" can do nothing.

Do you want a piece of me?
Have you read Stones of Venice?

The stones appear there as themselves.
Those rains brought these muds.

Your tone is excessive, they said.
But it was what I was saying they hated.

They didn't like my insistence.
They didn't like me.

Those over-cautious bells, afraid to ring out the changes.
Or was it a problem with the entire system?

***

I admire the poetry of Michael Palmer very much, but it is not the kind of poetry I would write. I like more humor, more spoken language, and more directness. What I do in these poems, then, is to erase his and write mine on top of them, leaving nothing of the original except for a few "trace" words. I couldn't do this with a poet whose poems I would want to write, nor with a poet who holds no attraction for me at all. For some reason I cannot write out of myself, only in reaction to something already there. I fear the explanation is otiose, because if it is more interesting than the poem, it sinks it right there, but if it is less interesting, who needs it?

After MP (2)

"I speak in the passive voice."
No, that's not quite right.

One would think rocks would get rough with age,
wouldn't you? An argument not worth having,

Camarón told him, he didn't believe it.
Spinoza told him, he didn't believe it.

But what? The thinness of strangers?
Gruel for thought?

I slept then woke, the usual order.
I emerged into the daylight.

That curious unfinished quality there,
a diagnosis cruel as glass in the pond.

I slipped into a patter designed to fool,
designed to defer or postpone.

You didn't deserve my deference,
you claimed, my condescension nor my recipes.

I replaced your walls with something stronger,
but they would be torn down the next day anyway.

It was worth it for the look on your face.
You should have seen yourself squirm!

I showed you better ways to do things.
I have small hopes for a better life.

After Michael Palmer

André Breton has been elected president.
He proclaims La République Surréaliste,

which it already was.
Mentira, mentira, mentira

mutter the jays.
If only they knew!

I've stolen your thunder.
I've stolen the milk from your coffee.


***

I wrote this poem several years ago. It doesn't have much to do with the MP poem that is was supposedly based on. The great thing is that I can admire this poem as though it were not mine, because I have forgotten it, and forgotten what I meant by it, yet recognize it as something I would have written. It is completely my style.