Texts, Partially Transmitted.

I am quite interested in texts or works that have a quality of inscape, of interior encoding. As if their ultimate justification is not contingent upon my ability to comprehend them. Poetry is not all about communication. Meaning is more complex than that, and somehow bound up with being. I understand hardly anything In Vallejo, yet the poems in Trilce are very precise in meaning in a way that an object is precise in the hands of someone blindfolded. Or maybe such a pseudo-incarnational take on meaning is simply proof of my being a Residual Catholic...I became interested in writing texts, not necessarily poems, where communication was difficult. This difficulty is more superficial, I think, than the difficulty presented by a poem by Celan or Vallejo, but it's deliberate enactment, as if forcing the reader to strenously eavesdrop, became a strange fascination. The idea of an infected text, and the impact of a Reverse Transcriptase process, was also relevant as a governing idea.

1.

CD4i LTRam persuaded that neither death nor life nor anGAGels nor princiPOLalities nor powers VIFnor things presentVPR nor things to come nor height nor deVPUpth nor any other creaTATure shall beREV able to seperate us from the love ENVof god which NEFis in chLTRist jesus our lordP24 GP41
ST CODON

tick tick
tick

2.

HIV Text


Dear Craig, this is a letter and gift from your Grannie and Grandpa for your 1st birthday which we hope you have a very nice one hope you enjoy the chocolate tell mummy and daddy we are asking for them your new house sounds very nice hope that your mother is looking after you I hope that yoU-G-Cur suit fits you xand keeps you nice and warm xx I waC-G-As speaking to your other Grannie she is yxy dying to see you telA-C-Gl your mummyxx I will write I hope yoA-C-Uu have xxayx very nice birthday you are yx xx gettU-C-Aing a big boy now xyxx love GrC-U-Gnnie and Grandpaxxx U-G-C xx y x A-G-C yyxxxC-G-A yxxx y C-G-A xxx y y G-U-C xxxx yyy xyx A-U-C yyxxy C-U-A yxyxyy U-U-A yyxxxx yy x C-C-A y xx A-G-U xxxxy xx y A-C-G xx y y PAO 46 xxy A-U-C P MCA 174 xy [P WAT 540] yy GOVT PD = FAX WASHINGTON DC 10 835 P EDT = MR x ANDREW COYLE STOP [DO NOT DLR BTWN 10PM & 6AM] 101 ELA STREET BLOOMFIELD NJER RTE MONTCLAIR STOP I REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT STAFF SERGEANT HUGH COYLE DIED IN VIETNAM ON 1JULY 1968 STOP INVESTIGATION IS IN PROGRESS STOP PLEASE ACCEPT MY DEEPEST SYMPATHY STOP KENNETH G WICKHAM MAJOR GEBERAL USA F35 THE ADJUTANT GENERAL STOP
STOP STOP
STOP
STOP



Three Idiotexts


1.

Ze teticîn-scri’ ‘pt.
ssssshhHhnnn
nnnhHhhsssssss
_. nnwrdlyspîrllinngM
an dlbrot I
an slfi’ nquireeeee!

1. whu am î?
2. owt ov wwatt dü î èèèmerdge?
??
îî
oo?
oo!
Now mon’stränss of newcle’
ar iblînks
ri’mmd wîdh daze!


2.

rr blagdî vai, ?
mu’ jo jî bakü!
Zu’ gz-wangxzu’ gz
wa’ nn. g.
nn.
zzczcnffglnvchrlp!nn!ng!
gg.ît’zHèll!
oo?
oouueeoo? ooiioo.

ooeeiiiyuee.
uHh?s ‘ndHlp! sHnd
hlp! pleeeEEèèzzzz!
ng.
nn. !!



3.

fsshMoo Oowth’’zz
prö’ to’a nn. uncîa
ti’ng, eggzz’zz
zzzzzzzzzziller’ratîonzöv

Spîroch’eeta Pallîda!
Tîz’a’g Tdöv
pîn’pr î ‘cköntologeezz
& rèèèmoatsî’ nalz.

u whooz wallzöv
psy’ len?e?
off.f’tèn ekko wîdh rr
shreeeEEîîKK!!inng! Fa?e?,

re’ kölle ‘ct a’ nd hëël
dhîs Prodîg’ al Son.

The last text, below, is different: I had been reading The Holocaust, by Martin Gilbert, as part of an attempt to read up on, and understand, the Problem of Evil, not in a simply philosophical way, but in a practical and historic way. The Text conflates two quotes, one from Eichmann, the other regarding a Jewish Historian, Emmanuel Ringelblum, who attempted to document the rise of anti-Semitism in Warsaw. He, his wife Yehudit and his thirteen year old son Uri were taken to Pawiak prison, where a man called Julien Hirszhaut encountered them and recorded these words of Ringelblum's. I felt the need to respond in language to what I read, but did not know how. The final words are those of Hirszhaut.

I REMEMBER, ADOLF EICHMANN LATER RECALLED [what is this little boy guilty of?] THAT AT THE END OF THE WANNSEE CONFERENCE, HEYDRICH, MULLER, AND MYSELF [and again he pointed his finger at his son] SAT VERY COSILY NEAR THE STOVE. WE ALL SAT TOGETHER LIKE COMRADES [it breaks my heart to think of him] NOT TO TALK SHOP, BUT TO REST AFTER LONG HOURS OF EFFORT.

I stood helpless before Ringelblum, I did not know what to answer, and a wave of sorrow swept over my heart.

New Work

It's been a while since I posted here, and a while since I have wrote anything, for various reasons. But I've picked up again on an old idea I had about infected texts. The basic idea is to take a Sonnet, and have it become infected by a retrovirus. Why a retrovirus? Because, in common with all viruses, they need to hijack the machinary of their host cell in order to replicate more of themselves. Retroviruses do this by using something called Reverse Transcriptase to rewrite their RNA as DNA which is then inserted into the host cell's DNA, with the instruction to produce copies of the virus. The Sonnet is very traditional, and irrespective of it's many variants has remained stable over time. It would be interesting to write a Sonnet sequence on idealised topics treated naively, from a realist or Platonic standpoint: The Soul, The Good, The Beautiful, infected by a retrovirus: reductionist neurobiology, moral relativism, the failure to establish objective aesthetic laws. Being a retrovirus, the infection could take the form of a radical undermining of the Host poem's original meaning, or an ironic gloss on it.

I wrote other notes for this project, on the back pages of a works notebook: Sonnet debris: exploded Sonnet with scattered cellular debris, as after retroviral assemblage and outbreak. A Sequence. The Sonnet hijacked, used, by something it cannot contain, and which leaves behind traces of itself, not only in the evident disruption and breakage, but fragments of it's own idiom. What is it that the Sonnet cannot contain, master, formalise? Integrate into it's tradition?

In the meantime, I wrote a couple of Sonnets using the genetic code for a retrovirus to partially determine the vocabulary.

1.

lecithTRopic monologue, reflexive,

as if i was dissected by a blade

not occams: in what manner should iiii live?

the voice again revising what is said

like an experimental GuineA piG,

or catologuing each alternative

like a POLynologist. VIF

VPR VPU TranslATe, irruptive!

in a small clear quietude i sat still

and listened to those REVenant voices

like fresh emergant fruitflies swarming towards a mirroring hereafter.

i tried to ENerVate my will

and simplify my NEwFangled choices.

i touched the one! and it broke down into LaughTeR.

2.

articulate, like a LobsTeR marching

forward GrAspinG at infitesimals,

my PanOpLy maneouvering!

i attuned my senses to decimals

and less, and tensed. verify this: something

rewrit me from the inside out! VPR

VPU a drill bit script, a strange unzipping.

my thermopylae was interior.

a hothouse flower, an unsubstantial

epiphenomenon, my roots more real

than i, i was in constant REnerVation

but always growing older: i ENVied

what i was that would outlive me, the real

real, that launches fruitflies on their brief inflection rrrrrrrrr