Steve Dalachinsky
[five poems from] extant fragments & (w)holes
Poet/collagist Steve Dalachinsky was born in Brooklyn after the last big war and has managed to survive lots of little wars. His book The Final Nite (Ugly Duckling Presse) won the PEN Oakland National Book Award. His most recent books are Fools Gold (2014 feral press), a superintendent's eyes (revised and expanded 2013 - unbearable/ autonomedia) and flying home, a collaboration with German visual artist Sig Bang Schmidt (Paris Lit Up Press 2015). His latest cd is The Fallout of Dreams with Dave Liebman and Richie Beirach (Roguart 2014). His poem “Particle Fever” was nominated for a 2015 Pushcart Prize. Forthcoming from Overpass Press The Invisible Ray, with artwork by Shalom Neuman.
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[five poems from] extant fragments & (w)holes
[- 2016 fragments]
yet each respecting the other’s voice
proud humble tennis player under acknowledged
incredible singular voiced poet & melville scholar
motor 21 s(ani)tation locker down show her
after a while as you get older you have so many pains
not tomorrow but before they happen
volt / aire
listening to him read of his dead child
reminded me when, as a boy, I lay in bed
in the d dark
willing myself to die
once death got so close to me
it nearly touched my face
i stopped just in time
BLAH begins snapshot of _________
BPS’s most recent book which ABC puts it is _____________
BP, no stranger to music has or third two books
while yodeling vignettes
so James asks Taylor
(no seriously that’s their names)
are you or a musician
since you know Steve
you must be one or the other
taylor hesitates thinks answers —
little bit of both I guess
but mostly I’m a listener
use me / superstitious year released
“you can hide the shit but you can’t hide the smell” the luncheonette
motherwell dada poets & painters in/form\(ed)
“words were useless to describe the dancers what the dancers have done
“these words do not mean that something is beginning to happen” (paul auster)
“one should read the real estate as a keeps rising
but only give them half you’re heart
& keep your eye on the bigger chance “
/ base heart \ loser / film \
bobby helms at the jukebox Jacqueline
the case for brooklyn – “it’s a nice day for brooklyn”
yet “i don’t understand the meaning of continuous text” (robert kelly)
“the gap is small...an essay = an attempt…an academic essay = persuasion
the difference between telling & knowing”
people trust brands: “cobra teaches you something without teaching you anything”
counter intuition too many quotes… it all through the haze…
ф
enobshelf (for & thru john wieners 4/6/16)
face torn going
drunk at the ballroom filled with music
falling down drinking
roof peaks from atop the mountains
secret roadmaps
pig boys’ gloves
put your flesh in the world
peeks rough self unknowing people in sorrow
the aural tradition
rifled & debauched in my grave
sweet space
chicanery
hyp-o
the trials
the revenge of others’ lives
when one or more prod
then shred
your senses
your language
distributing straitjackets
confined to our own medicated heads
forgotten spelled milky civilians
hung up on our mothers
but where are our fathers
as if they were all artificial gates between
their childhoods & ours
which side is your team on?
which coffin did your team emerge from?
interi/orating the holy waters?
classical labor negligent
(the carrot grown downward upward
side up down)
not being able to tell the actor from
the impersonator
our very biologies
hemmed in
& dismissed.
ф
stuttering napkins (for paul blackburn)
1.
i sit there in McSorley’s maybe a table away from you & the firemen & cops writing my poems
being “a man” at the ripe old age of late teenager
eating liederkranz cheese crackers & onions
drinking a mixture of Guinness & light beer
until I am plastered i was always alone with the sawdust
on my soles & lips
you – i there
through our histories –
our histories coinciding
yet never intertwining
autumn now
your history in the history books
mine
like the soon falling leaves
we drink together
but apart
you survive as i perish
in a fine wind
let’s meet later at Max’s
(the book store not the city)
then later
i’ll play another version of that Rollins tune
you like so much
where was i while i was there in the middle of all this?
where was i?
it’s autumn
early to mid 1960s
as i exit the station one fallen leaf brown & brittle
lying on the subway steps – a bit too early.
2.
tonight i heard paul blackburn’s voice
his numbers
my numbers after his numbers
without ever knowing his numbers
i’m paler than my brother’s
blue impala
i’ve always felt perhaps because
i’m not a translator myself
that translation brings too much ERA
into one’s own poetry
possibly
a located
unrest
licks
BLACK
uneasy
ram-shackled
nuances
bloody
lack luster
average
cumulative
kindness
my brother’s impala was a
convertible.st marks church / poetry project / for /of / thru paul blackburn – 2016ф
in the station
here there are these legs
that show from the knee downward
expressing what’s next
she’s eating her candy slowly chewing slowly
her mouth closed
everyone’s mouth is closed
except for the chattering couple
it’s friday & closing in on midnight
she’s dressed for a date that never happened
i could talk to her about guns or love
but this is downtown
& the train is moving uptown
& now all those legs have disappeared
with its motion
& more mouths open as we enter the tunnel
*
my loneliness is so profound
only the world’s loneliness & the water
lapping against the pier
could suffice to describe it
the group speaking in a foreign language
confounds me
he gets more a month from his parents
than most folks make in a lifetime.
*
ocean drunk mass settings
881
587 198
203 324
constant accumulation pravda station
crossed out
a child walking on the palms of the air
of brood with malaxated hungry grubs
referred to behavior remarks as a(t)ten(t)sion from
capping the larvae hatch
attained its full development elsewhere – OFFSPRING
sometimes she brings me flowers
i bring her the street.2016ф
pierre joris - a brief history
(joris/auster @ nyu on paul celan - 2014)
x’s sq. sign
revel on as love is on photos of crowd & writing
poems in English as a kid
pierre decides to come to america after deciding
not to write poems in mother tongue
only write phones & mother tongue
toll-free literature poetry naked lunch howl 1961 bard college
translation helped him learn how to write in english
end @ / i found on the road in spanish beached
moved into shakespeare & company
didn’t want to write in french or german as a teen first heard
celan phones (poems)@ age 15
they drove to venue together translating towards english
celan was first poet to translate into english @ 19/ 20 years old
translating poems he had to take them apart
part @ they’re core (cool)
then learn how to write his own phone (poems)
kelly rothenberg fisherman/eshelman
homes problems how are need polenz me Dee Dee Dee Dee Dee Dee english english
english eng right DDD.bye mother tongue hard hard hard hardbard auto dictate is
like auto didact the review of mine / a redo reader of minds … & Time.
Poet/collagist Steve Dalachinsky was born in Brooklyn after the last big war and has managed to survive lots of little wars. His book The Final Nite (Ugly Duckling Presse) won the PEN Oakland National Book Award. His most recent books are Fools Gold (2014 feral press), a superintendent's eyes (revised and expanded 2013 - unbearable/ autonomedia) and flying home, a collaboration with German visual artist Sig Bang Schmidt (Paris Lit Up Press 2015). His latest cd is The Fallout of Dreams with Dave Liebman and Richie Beirach (Roguart 2014). His poem “Particle Fever” was nominated for a 2015 Pushcart Prize. Forthcoming from Overpass Press The Invisible Ray, with artwork by Shalom Neuman.