Poem by Stephen Bett

Novel Lines 101: 101 alphabetical poems, each riffing on the opening line of a postmodern novel or metafiction.


Antonio Lobo Antunes, Act of the Damned (opening lines; trans, Richard Zenith)

On the second Wednesday of September, 1925, I arrived at the office at ten-past nine. I remember this not because I have an exceptional memory or keep a diary (I stay away from pussyshit nonsense like diaries and poems) but because it was my last day of work before we fled to Spain.


09 / 09 — cycle compleat (niner niner)
Yep, a Wednesday for sure

That ’25 cent pussyshit nonsense
poems stuck on “17”

Aha, suk’cess (slurp)
busy’ness, ahh, mater·I·al
ass’pect of life, yah?

We’re vibrating crazy 8’s
up here baby, star-power
No pot shots, pls

(Bye bye sell sell, ffs)

Good luck dumb luck, un-
luck one duck we’ve left
Sara K.O.

It’s ten-past nine
(hun’erd years hence
well almost)

Put a tenner on “19”
No input no in-
coming, pls

Poet, your time has come

Poems by Norman Jope

AN ELYSIAN GLOW

Following her through shady pines on a summer’s day, as if in the hope of a sudden trackless miracle, the young man trips and scatters his thoughts across the nearby shores. Beyond the woods, the sky’s suffused with solid light that turns the brow to marble and the brain to water. The fruits of the earth are there to be seized… the elephant seeks the orchid with a delicate hoof.

Suddenly, he’s in a jungle far to the east and staggers, his flesh fermenting amongst tangled roots and rainbow-coloured insects, inhaling the durian-stench of all the fruits of the earth combined. He buries his nose in fetid matter as night falls unexpectedly, drawing him down to global compost and smells that the planet of water, so many different shades of water, exhales into the cosmos.

He is ready to die now, having met the Great God Pan. Whose emissary is lost in the pine trees, leading him on towards the water where he and his spirit-named boat will drown. He cannot put this into words of any precision, but the generalities suggest what he has experienced – great furnace doors have opened on him and the fire in his eyes can only be quenched by indifferent water.


DANCING IN THE SKIN OF A TATTERED GOD
after Emil Cioran

At the end of a febrile day
the lure of resurrection
only feels like more of the same –
as even after dusk, the sun beats down
from a sky that’s secreted in the brain
like a criminal god. Faint smears of sweat
remind me that I live
and, of the thirty thousand days
that I might hope for on earth,
this has been amongst the better ones
despite the absence of sex and wine.
But still, I feel myself melting,
smeared across eternity
like a stain that spreads from Hell,
as I look ahead to the exit,
the triumph of the impersonal
and to those strange and wonderful events
that I will never witness. Leached out,
leaked out to a place my name won’t reach,
I accept the conclusion of my febrile days.


IN THIS MOMENT

Once more I experience exhaustion, but also exhilaration, at the thought that everything that has ever happened anywhere has led to here and everywhere else, and that everything that will ever happen is already predictable right up to the end. I don’t require random swerves of free will to sustain my morale… the only freedom that matters is the freedom to choose, and I choose in accordance with what I am and the stories that have made me what I am.

And so, the book is written, even if we move from one page to the next and cannot even see to the far side of the night to come. And equally so, I shrug my shoulders and think of all the destinies that did or will not come to pass.

The destiny for the baby bird I walked past yesterday morning, below a high hedge in the drizzle, was a brief and seemingly certain one. It must have fallen from a nest in the hedge and it was circling uncertainly, like a red egg with wings, with little or no chance of flight. Its whole life will have almost certainly passed in a single day – although it wasn’t for me to deliver the coup de grâce, and if there was just one chance in a million that its efforts would be successful then it was a chance worth taking.

So, slightly nauseous, I went on my way and that bird’s brief destiny interfused with mine. It took the whole of creation to bring us together and to send us on our separate ways… from a ʹchance encounterʹ that has led, perhaps, to the flimsiest of resurrections.

OUT THERE

I’m dancing with indifferent stars,
whole forests of them on a winter’s night.
I’m dancing with eyes
that have left my body rooted,
from Polaris to Capella,
Orion to the snake of Eridanus.
Jupiter follows Saturn to the west
as Sirius rises. Even in this city’s skies
the blur of the Milky Way is visible
if not the billions of miles –
the lessons of the unbounded
locate me as they weigh me down.
Pillowed on the uncaring,
mirrored in ultimate onyx,
I salute the yawning void
as an egg from which God’s absence hatches…
and feel myself both finite and free
as my gaze flares like a shooting star
unable to rest, to yield or accept.

Poems by Mark Young

A NOTE ON THE MANDRAKE

The irregular
black bands down
its side allow a
small force to over-
come a larger
one. Otherwise
it is blue, &
draws caricatures
of the effects of
technology
on a modern society
where the houses
& temples are made
from hardened
steel. They are
still intact, a
modicum of the
[Machtpolitik] of its
massage, although
the latter is ex-
pressed as a ratio
of load to effort
& its form rarely
avers its content.

THE YUCATAN PENINSULA AUTONOMOUS REGION

In order to abide
by the precepts
of [The Loneliness of
the Long Distance
Runner] which is / their
holy book, some moths
retire from politics
but still continue to
produce distinctive fibers
based on the use of
quartz & similar poly-
morphs. Others are
rounded up so they
do not become a
significant number
when their final digit
is rounded down. The
rest, once sufficient
radiation has been
absorbed, are left
to complete the
frescoes on the walls
of the Sistine Chapel.
As members of the
company of the faithful
this is part of their
duty, a way to ensure
the Yucatan remains
a one-party state.

Poem by Jimmy Crouse

THE LIMITED MEANS OF THE HUMBLEST SEEKER


The resolution represents
A force of weight or weights
Solution half the angle when
The angles equal sine

The vertical respectively
A combination force
Involves of angles indirect
A beam inclined upon

A thrust of struts or braces same
Inversely only that
Of timbers heavy further where
Of equal angles half

The weight unequal angles end
Are equal angles hung
At arms or any angle nut
To crack or lever crank

Or second order angular
Of angle order arms
Adjusted horizontal push
Or pulley single sheave

Consisting fixed all single sheave
Of rope to top a pair
A draw above a pair of each
Suspended derrick legs

The bucket raised above the mouth
The shaft or pit by weight
Is only equal times the time
A clamping windlass load

A seizing eye excessive wear
From motion ancient ear
Equivalent at bottom locks
On upward through a pin

In hoists of rocking over curve
Of over counter weight
And tension slide and tension slide
And tension slides of lace

At center ending side inside
At center ending each
Across at center dotted lines
Across outside as shown

The arrows show direction run
Full twist or cross reverse
On driven idler line direct
As relative of speed

Traversing cone decreasing cone
Efficient width in webs
A given close connection wrapped
And pressed against a gear

A light eccentric stud a cone
A single either way
The drum a bevel gear on tight
A shipper pair of tight

A quick return obtained is fast
Is loose obtained attached
A spur of power idlers twist
Efficiency increased

A truck a concave conical
To curved or other light
Traversing free a feather faced
In cones of pinion range

Of speed a rocking shaft device
Convex device a disc
A band by pedal kept released
That swivels taut at yoke

Poems by Joshua Martin

THREADED INTO A SAUCE

Mourn spouse separate splints
groaning glassy pelvic veneration stumps
as thorough haze with chaotic underwater
caving pressurized morticians. Cosmos
blend evaluated vinyl mumps without
exhaling televised whips. Sneezing.

Throat clearly labeled evaporation
still bunching beneath cravats
robotic yet pocket-sized. Arrogant
trip as a carrot lanyard. Relish
customized routine funnel. If
battled forlorn mutations.

Adage postcard ramble. Sculpted
to wither indirect formaldehyde
inching nearest summer’s ear
that dangles. Average. Brunt.
Radiating slanted biproducts to
which guessing only reveals edges
staring plainly through peepholes
covered in tar starts bluntly
provoked. Mangled. Refined.


CULMINATION AND ROUTE: THE ATTEMPTED PROVOCATEURS

Delegate expressed thoughts
(paradoxical), relying but their tactics
were at that time untimely. An extremely
valuable testimony of an irreproachable witness!

“We (at least many of us)”
says toward amounted gigantic planets.

As an enemy, already outdated,
here omit the March captivity
for almost two decades.

“Were unconsciously steering no question”
gave the slogan of a division of labor,
the foundational position.

“Happy” to vote after the lesser,
they gave the wrong blame for bloody encounters.

“You can overthrow the hands of theses”
consisted in an attempt eclipsed
by order of not numerous but bustling.

Not prevailing.

Gardens, a proclamation
ending a moreover dirty-handed
revolution. Catastrophe!

Famous distort,
a monstrous adventure.

“To be thrown out of the scales”
preached twenty-four hours
in the eyes of votes against.

Resounding episode
possessing an alluring slogan.

To portray circles.
Flatly denies
attempted counter-revolution.

Also to the skin.

Transfer the sitting fortress
from attack, “are shooting us.”

Was warning,
enjoying lofty protection
of all kinds.

Crooks with cartridges,
there is nothing unlikely in that.

Poems by Keith Nunes

WHERE TO GO

The cause
Before
The pause,
Hands out
Steering
Ino sepia,

Red flags, white flags,
Survivors flagging
Down fleers,
One flag-waver lures
Adherents
Builds barricades,
Millions march,

The defensive
Inflict
Defensive wounds,

No-one is in charge but
We all know what’s
Going on,
Where are the Informed,
We even know where to go,
Yes,
We know [where this is going]


A STORIED TALE

Triumphal
Apocryphal
Stories of exactitude
Rewritten
Hidden

Sold and stolen
Planted in minds
Recirculated
Folklore and fable
Rubbished, banished
Resurfaced, Reinvented
Rhetoric
Believably
Revolutionary
Unctuous and unbidden
Manifesto
Inherited
Installed
Institutionalised
Statute by decree
Patriotic
Inspiring, rousing
Fought for,
Died for.

Poems by Sheila E. Murphy

FROM JAZZ FINGERINGS

#5

Drums whisper thrumming alongside the act of ascent
withering away a way with words a few marbles
gripped between fingers still gesture to the thought of
umbilical cord near psaltery. How does orchestral say-so
thin as gruel nourish banter approaching say-so with weeds
silvery as shrill the whistling subverts real melody
that splices ready dialogue fresh with restitution beneath
the umbrella laden with corn silk wheeled in to cover
instant gravitas. Believe me faith sequences thought just as priests
give in to referenda an ounce away from sadness, a brave situation
of comedic fracture you may know for all the wheels. Fraught
with Rembrandt's grief brushed this way to braid the situation comedy
with flailing forecast remembered. I lay me down amid melodic structure
and sentiment fibrous with next things flung toward feeder cities splayed
with possibility. Listen to the frayed indifference splayed
near the focus, the deeds, the washed claustrophobia enclosed
by cement within a spliced vault close with seeds as the bathing
roust entwined with magnificat soldered to fry the litmus
given to grief and shouldered one too many seeds melted
on the tongue fixed in space beyond arpeggiated whim sprints
beyond sonority that lifts into the canyon mercying forth.


FROM JAZZ FINGERINGS

#9

Autumn names its reeds slim kin weathered
everlast. The time comes when combs lose
reputation everyone looks away,
defrays comeuppance center folded into
minced notes. Why not charitably denude
first thought blistery thought, its silence,
and learn to sing, learn repair soft silo
mercantile feeding like rainbow trout
the mood of elbows captures clouds
recovering from a surfeit of woodwind mist.
The charm baked clam festooned with libel
you could love or list or lease the wristband
headed for grief eventually near the snow.
The olives not far away, listen to search engines
tossing probability into the mussed snow of Ann Arbor,
beyond most willow motivations cloaked in low-
hanging branch work and moving
with slow deliberate ballet like seams,
little prodigies part of a loved community
with fur and other natural protections buffeting wind
when it accidentally comes in clear as a radio.

Poems by Jonathan Penton

CORRIDOR PIN, BLUE

Coosje van Bruggen

American, born the Netherlands, 1942-2009

Claes Oldenburg

American, born Sweden, 1929-2022

Corridor Pin, Blue, 1999

Stainless steel and aluminum with blue acrylic polyurethane enamel, ed. 3/3

Museum purchase, Sydney and Walda Besthoff Foundation, 2004.118

Stretching over troubled water
looking nothing like a bridge
feeding off a comrade’s horror
laughing, lying in a ditch

So if you find yourself haunted by therapists and self-care menus that haint paint cannot chase away ask if it points at you

like Rhapsody in Blue

Sorrow doesn’t need a reason
but it always has a cause
a child’s death or just the season
when your teeth begin to fall

And truth might not be worth that much it persists nonetheless and if your beginnings are too sharp leaving you not much left you’ve got to walk on through

this corridor of blue

UNTITLED SHAPIRO

Joel Shapiro

American, born 1941

Untitled, 1991

Bronze

Gift of Sydney and Walda Besthoff, 98.213

Installation funded by Mr. and Mrs. Ralph O. Brennan

We fit wrong over the phone
We fit wrong face to face
We fit wrong when I’m touching your cheek, telling you what I regret

Yet I would sit at this coiled wire forever
I have only built this shaky bridge a day
Time twists on itself like our bad attempts at romance
leaving me with memories that never happened and may not

Our misfitting doesn’t mean much
but it isn’t a mistake
Our dysfunction doesn’t offer the condemnation we rely on to excuse our horrid fit

I will reach for you every night
and cup my hand around you
in ways that never seemed funny or cute
Happiness is not a birthright
happiness ain’t even real
but all our bad connections will remain timeless, a hunk of unnamed bronze

SPIDER

Louise Bourgeois

American, born in France, 1911-2010

Spider, 1996

Bronze

Gift of Syndey and Walda Besthoff, 98.112

Installation funded by Mr. and Mrs. Richard W. Freeman Jr.

Is there room for anxiety here?
Is there room to float, to hang, to twist one’s head around
like a nightmare of green vomit and no brakes?

We are getting better. Yes,
we are growing and strengthening and chasing our higher selves

Is it too late for failure?
For I feel failure coming on
Raising itself above me
Defeat in a moment of celebration
and I don’t see a space for that anymore.

I don’t see much of anything
when you cut down past the poison dreams.