Jon Woodward
4 poems
**
The Music
Then you’re right back where you were,
calling in another airstrike on some guy
So you stir up some chatter from somewhere shallow
to fill the radio silence so you don’t tip the guy off
and squeeze off some half-hearted shots
“The music will advance its own argument
The thrill consciousness gets from its reflection
in the dead eyes of its human opponent
The music will advance its own argument
You will tell lifelike tales as we crest
the rollercoaster simulation, improbable mandolin music,
X-ray pelvis & excellent tit physics
You will tell lifelike tales as we crest
Laughter and orgasm are the 2 demonic sounds
humans are capable of making
There are millions more / The music doesn’t need a human
Laughter and orgasm are the 2 demonic sounds”
“Out of the blue, it (skedaddle) became fashionable in 1862, with lots
of examples appearing in American newspapers and books. The focus of
all the early examples is the War; without doubt it started out as
military slang with the meaning of fleeing the battlefield or
retreating hurriedly.”
{........}-----------------------------------> kaboom
“Yeah, man! Hyuk hyuk!! A
hyuk, a hyuk, whoooo weeee!! That
got him! That
little shit! Whoooo!!
You gettin’ this?”
“Yeah, man, I got the whole thing,
I’m gettin’ all of it.”
A sequence of nice sounds
An exquisite body of excellent “almost sexual” sound
“doesn’t need a human”
Chunks of hot metal & concrete
whizzing
past our position
making that ricochet sound
but in real life!
“You know you can reverse those in Pro Tools
and they’ll sound equally sweet
if not more”
There are millions more
The music doesn’t need a human
There are millions more
large purple violet lonely
purple large lonely violet
large lonely violet purple
how to always keep touching the outside of a piano chord?
Three keys from the middle
of a movement isolated
isolation
“a consummation
....................devoutly…”
You keep settin’ ‘em up
I’ll keep knockin’ ‘em down
the middle of a movement isolated
You keep settin’ ‘em up
She got kidnapped. She got kidnapped. She got kidnapped. She got
kidnapped. She got kidnapped.
The interview was childish. The interview was childish. The interview
was childish. The interview was childish. The interview itself was
fascinating.
**
Anatomical Diagram Fairy Tale Wallpaper (Sample)
chirp) loose brute dew (goose loose) newts (fish sun) plus lung dim cusp cuts gums mute
up through leaves close (one each) dove rung then slung (ride low) smart (toad read)
close (flap dead float) (peach cross) (dive swan) nigh mar glass ram glass wrap (flap dead
float) plant wrap wet neck (start self) bread nice chase way waltz milk (fish sun) tint flit
(start) swift clip sleep deep (toad read) (one each) peep (cross peach) (leaf loose) (perch
chirp) loose brute dew (goose loose) newts (fish sun) plus lung dim cusp cuts gums mute
up through leaves close (one each) dove rung then slung (ride low) smart (toad read)
close (flap dead float) (peach cross) (dive swan) nigh mar glass ram glass wrap (flap dead
float) plant wrap wet neck (start self) bread nice chase way waltz milk (fish sun) tint flit
(start) swift clip sleep deep (toad read) (one each) peep (cross peach) (leaf loose) (perch
chirp) loose brute dew (goose loose) newts (fish sun) plus lung dim cusp cuts gums mute
up through leaves close (one each) dove rung then slung (ride low) smart (toad read)
close (flap dead float) (peach cross) (dive swan) nigh mar glass ram glass wrap (flap dead
float) plant wrap wet neck (start self) bread nice chase way waltz milk (fish sun) tint flit
(start) swift clip sleep deep (toad read) (one each) peep (cross peach) (leaf loose) (perch
chirp) loose brute dew (goose loose) newts (fish sun) plus lung dim cusp cuts gums mute
up through leaves close (one each) dove rung then slung (ride low) smart (toad read)
close (flap dead float) (peach cross) (dive swan) nigh mar glass ram glass wrap (flap dead
float) plant wrap wet neck (start self) bread nice chase way waltz milk (fish sun) tint flit
(start) swift clip sleep deep (toad read) (one each) peep (cross peach) (leaf loose) (perch
chirp) loose brute dew (goose loose) newts (fish sun) plus lung dim cusp cuts gums mute
up through leaves close (one each) dove rung then slung (ride low) smart (toad read)
close (flap dead float) (peach cross) (dive swan) nigh mar glass ram glass wrap (flap dead
float) plant wrap wet neck (start self) bread nice chase way waltz milk (fish sun) tint flit
(start) swift clip sleep deep (toad read) (one each) peep (cross peach) (leaf loose) (perch
chirp) loose brute dew (goose loose) newts (fish sun) plus lung dim cusp cuts gums mute
up through leaves close (one each) dove rung then slung (ride low) smart (toad read)
close (flap dead float) (peach cross) (dive swan) nigh mar glass ram glass wrap (flap dead
float) plant wrap wet neck (start self) bread nice chase way waltz milk (fish sun) tint flit
(start) swift clip sleep deep (toad read) (one each) peep (cross peach) (leaf loose) (perch
**
Ubiquitous Graffiti Alone
It’s all
the same.
What doesn’t change
is that.
The ubiquitous graffiti alone
salvages this anti-paradise
A mermaid unsheathing her knife
six mermaids
Stab the part of the water
where no water is she says,
like a mouth,
is, all
happening, in
slow, motion
intention, (Then beat it out of him!!)
vises, her
winches, all sorts of straps
tightening, cold foot
ninety degrees the wrong
way, whole passage “lifted” as they say.
Wow, I remember imagining
myself thinking
When I was a child, I used to talk as a child,
think as a child, reason as a child;
when I became a man,
I put aside childish things.
Four groups of participants were examined based on the degree of
exposure to remains. Age, sex, volunteer status, prior experience
handling remains, and preexposure measures of depression and mutilation
fear were statistically controlled.
Their doom seems excessive to me
I do not know how it seemed
to their author
I’ve been in this movie already before
They did 500 takes of this scene
Me, made up to look like John Turturro
John Turturro & I sitting across a card table from one another:
The murderer shuffled
its card deck hands &
chewed gum with its eyes (blinking)
The ubiquitous graffiti alone
The ubiquitous graffiti alone
salvages this anti-paradise
In 1988,
the Underwater Archaeological Society of Alberta
marked the site with an underwater monument.
I learned I may not be interested
in the trail of acts of mute despair
all the way down
where it goes yet
something in
the wrists and temptation
to change key is
left on. An instrument level and
its blinking light.
—trying to, change your mind or, challenge you on that stuff?
The ubiquitous graffiti
The center of gravity
The thick of the fighting
Lawful treatment of remains
The camera was looking down from the surface
—trying to, change your mind or, challenge you on that stuff?
—trying to, change your
mind or,
Uh… I guess he, he – they used cameras that he built, to um, take,
photographs from the like the very first, split second after the, after
the test shots went off.
Well yeah, remember this is before, well, even, in some cases, before
photography
“…or radar-jamming mentation,
As deep into a black pit
You’re lowered
You are engineered
Not to crumple under
The atmospheres
And at the bottom
You meet a correspondent
Because the people want to know”
smack, strike, enable, split, goof, train, kneel, run through, dig,
smite, win, test, give, hand, rend, mike, gaff, crimp, trudge, sever,
travel, practice, pacify, overhaul, negotiate, volunteer, combine,
complete, redact, exude, entrust, pause, tone down, focus, grind, pick,
tank, rack, float, whoop, drink,
I myself always had an easy time enjoying fast music – that’s just me.
I often skip over the slow songs. That’s just the way I think about,
about, that’s just the stuff I prefer to listen to. I theorize, okay,
that the fact of death, of being a mortal human, comes across better
the faster the music goes, because of what’s left out. Because of what
the song is trying harder, the faster the music goes, to leave out. An
example? Everything’s an example.
I’m assuming that the solution to Zeno’s Paradox (as you’ve stated it
here anyway) is to be found somewhere other than in photography?
Um, like once it lays its root foundation, where does it get the energy
and/or the sunlight it needs to grow to the top? I didn’t really have
the time slash motivation to, research that further, or, to click a lot
of links, and, you know, go into it deeper.
**
Wall
I’ll be the wall
in your audible delay,
& y’all be y’all,
the wall said, & we all said
..........................okay
––––––
I’ll be the wall
in the movie you’re making,
and someday they’ll
award my acting
––––––
Rock wall, rock wall
There are reasons to fall,
surpassing the cannon
or soft spider paw
or the city’s mysterious
lichenoid crawl
There are reasons to fall
rock wall, rock wall
––––––
O mental gymnastics!
Yeah car-bomb okay
Apollo in chariot
Yeah Santa in sleigh
Yeah No one to drive
the car
There’s time to fall
Rock wall, rock wall
––––––
I’ll be the wall
& you remain
in an intermediate form
till I say.
––––––
Rock wall, rock wall,
There’s time to fall
Rock wall, rock wall,
There’s time to fall
The bed is soft
The moon is gone
The TV is off
The night is long
There’s time to fall,
Rock wall, rock wall
Rock wall, rock wall,
There’s time to fall
––––––
It’s pretty self-explanatory
It may stay small
It may rhyme
Between what is the rhyme it to be placed?
Dark wall, to stand out on the pale yellow hillside?
A pale yellow creature with dark stripes
to be taken as a boon to the people
Hashi found one inside the wall &
we couldn’t tell if it lived there or how it got there
––––––
Wall, with grafitti
of poison-arrow frogs:
dark red, bright yellow,
or mottled black and green
A frog’s a little person and
a head is a hall if
the Is of existence isn’t
the Is of bestowal
Bestowal, withdrawal,
of head, and hall
Silent, and black
& green, and fine
**
return to sawbuck 2.4
**
Jon Woodward lives in Boston and works at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology. His second book of poems, Rain, was published in 2006 by Wave Books.
**
The Music
Then you’re right back where you were,
calling in another airstrike on some guy
So you stir up some chatter from somewhere shallow
to fill the radio silence so you don’t tip the guy off
and squeeze off some half-hearted shots
“The music will advance its own argument
The thrill consciousness gets from its reflection
in the dead eyes of its human opponent
The music will advance its own argument
You will tell lifelike tales as we crest
the rollercoaster simulation, improbable mandolin music,
X-ray pelvis & excellent tit physics
You will tell lifelike tales as we crest
Laughter and orgasm are the 2 demonic sounds
humans are capable of making
There are millions more / The music doesn’t need a human
Laughter and orgasm are the 2 demonic sounds”
“Out of the blue, it (skedaddle) became fashionable in 1862, with lots
of examples appearing in American newspapers and books. The focus of
all the early examples is the War; without doubt it started out as
military slang with the meaning of fleeing the battlefield or
retreating hurriedly.”
{........}-----------------------------------> kaboom
“Yeah, man! Hyuk hyuk!! A
hyuk, a hyuk, whoooo weeee!! That
got him! That
little shit! Whoooo!!
You gettin’ this?”
“Yeah, man, I got the whole thing,
I’m gettin’ all of it.”
A sequence of nice sounds
An exquisite body of excellent “almost sexual” sound
“doesn’t need a human”
Chunks of hot metal & concrete
whizzing
past our position
making that ricochet sound
but in real life!
“You know you can reverse those in Pro Tools
and they’ll sound equally sweet
if not more”
There are millions more
The music doesn’t need a human
There are millions more
large purple violet lonely
purple large lonely violet
large lonely violet purple
how to always keep touching the outside of a piano chord?
Three keys from the middle
of a movement isolated
isolation
“a consummation
....................devoutly…”
You keep settin’ ‘em up
I’ll keep knockin’ ‘em down
the middle of a movement isolated
You keep settin’ ‘em up
She got kidnapped. She got kidnapped. She got kidnapped. She got
kidnapped. She got kidnapped.
The interview was childish. The interview was childish. The interview
was childish. The interview was childish. The interview itself was
fascinating.
**
Anatomical Diagram Fairy Tale Wallpaper (Sample)
chirp) loose brute dew (goose loose) newts (fish sun) plus lung dim cusp cuts gums mute
up through leaves close (one each) dove rung then slung (ride low) smart (toad read)
close (flap dead float) (peach cross) (dive swan) nigh mar glass ram glass wrap (flap dead
float) plant wrap wet neck (start self) bread nice chase way waltz milk (fish sun) tint flit
(start) swift clip sleep deep (toad read) (one each) peep (cross peach) (leaf loose) (perch
chirp) loose brute dew (goose loose) newts (fish sun) plus lung dim cusp cuts gums mute
up through leaves close (one each) dove rung then slung (ride low) smart (toad read)
close (flap dead float) (peach cross) (dive swan) nigh mar glass ram glass wrap (flap dead
float) plant wrap wet neck (start self) bread nice chase way waltz milk (fish sun) tint flit
(start) swift clip sleep deep (toad read) (one each) peep (cross peach) (leaf loose) (perch
chirp) loose brute dew (goose loose) newts (fish sun) plus lung dim cusp cuts gums mute
up through leaves close (one each) dove rung then slung (ride low) smart (toad read)
close (flap dead float) (peach cross) (dive swan) nigh mar glass ram glass wrap (flap dead
float) plant wrap wet neck (start self) bread nice chase way waltz milk (fish sun) tint flit
(start) swift clip sleep deep (toad read) (one each) peep (cross peach) (leaf loose) (perch
chirp) loose brute dew (goose loose) newts (fish sun) plus lung dim cusp cuts gums mute
up through leaves close (one each) dove rung then slung (ride low) smart (toad read)
close (flap dead float) (peach cross) (dive swan) nigh mar glass ram glass wrap (flap dead
float) plant wrap wet neck (start self) bread nice chase way waltz milk (fish sun) tint flit
(start) swift clip sleep deep (toad read) (one each) peep (cross peach) (leaf loose) (perch
chirp) loose brute dew (goose loose) newts (fish sun) plus lung dim cusp cuts gums mute
up through leaves close (one each) dove rung then slung (ride low) smart (toad read)
close (flap dead float) (peach cross) (dive swan) nigh mar glass ram glass wrap (flap dead
float) plant wrap wet neck (start self) bread nice chase way waltz milk (fish sun) tint flit
(start) swift clip sleep deep (toad read) (one each) peep (cross peach) (leaf loose) (perch
chirp) loose brute dew (goose loose) newts (fish sun) plus lung dim cusp cuts gums mute
up through leaves close (one each) dove rung then slung (ride low) smart (toad read)
close (flap dead float) (peach cross) (dive swan) nigh mar glass ram glass wrap (flap dead
float) plant wrap wet neck (start self) bread nice chase way waltz milk (fish sun) tint flit
(start) swift clip sleep deep (toad read) (one each) peep (cross peach) (leaf loose) (perch
**
Ubiquitous Graffiti Alone
It’s all
the same.
What doesn’t change
is that.
The ubiquitous graffiti alone
salvages this anti-paradise
A mermaid unsheathing her knife
six mermaids
Stab the part of the water
where no water is she says,
like a mouth,
is, all
happening, in
slow, motion
intention, (Then beat it out of him!!)
vises, her
winches, all sorts of straps
tightening, cold foot
ninety degrees the wrong
way, whole passage “lifted” as they say.
Wow, I remember imagining
myself thinking
When I was a child, I used to talk as a child,
think as a child, reason as a child;
when I became a man,
I put aside childish things.
Four groups of participants were examined based on the degree of
exposure to remains. Age, sex, volunteer status, prior experience
handling remains, and preexposure measures of depression and mutilation
fear were statistically controlled.
Their doom seems excessive to me
I do not know how it seemed
to their author
I’ve been in this movie already before
They did 500 takes of this scene
Me, made up to look like John Turturro
John Turturro & I sitting across a card table from one another:
The murderer shuffled
its card deck hands &
chewed gum with its eyes (blinking)
The ubiquitous graffiti alone
The ubiquitous graffiti alone
salvages this anti-paradise
In 1988,
the Underwater Archaeological Society of Alberta
marked the site with an underwater monument.
I learned I may not be interested
in the trail of acts of mute despair
all the way down
where it goes yet
something in
the wrists and temptation
to change key is
left on. An instrument level and
its blinking light.
—trying to, change your mind or, challenge you on that stuff?
The ubiquitous graffiti
The center of gravity
The thick of the fighting
Lawful treatment of remains
The camera was looking down from the surface
—trying to, change your mind or, challenge you on that stuff?
—trying to, change your
mind or,
Uh… I guess he, he – they used cameras that he built, to um, take,
photographs from the like the very first, split second after the, after
the test shots went off.
Well yeah, remember this is before, well, even, in some cases, before
photography
“…or radar-jamming mentation,
As deep into a black pit
You’re lowered
You are engineered
Not to crumple under
The atmospheres
And at the bottom
You meet a correspondent
Because the people want to know”
smack, strike, enable, split, goof, train, kneel, run through, dig,
smite, win, test, give, hand, rend, mike, gaff, crimp, trudge, sever,
travel, practice, pacify, overhaul, negotiate, volunteer, combine,
complete, redact, exude, entrust, pause, tone down, focus, grind, pick,
tank, rack, float, whoop, drink,
I myself always had an easy time enjoying fast music – that’s just me.
I often skip over the slow songs. That’s just the way I think about,
about, that’s just the stuff I prefer to listen to. I theorize, okay,
that the fact of death, of being a mortal human, comes across better
the faster the music goes, because of what’s left out. Because of what
the song is trying harder, the faster the music goes, to leave out. An
example? Everything’s an example.
I’m assuming that the solution to Zeno’s Paradox (as you’ve stated it
here anyway) is to be found somewhere other than in photography?
Um, like once it lays its root foundation, where does it get the energy
and/or the sunlight it needs to grow to the top? I didn’t really have
the time slash motivation to, research that further, or, to click a lot
of links, and, you know, go into it deeper.
**
Wall
I’ll be the wall
in your audible delay,
& y’all be y’all,
the wall said, & we all said
..........................okay
––––––
I’ll be the wall
in the movie you’re making,
and someday they’ll
award my acting
––––––
Rock wall, rock wall
There are reasons to fall,
surpassing the cannon
or soft spider paw
or the city’s mysterious
lichenoid crawl
There are reasons to fall
rock wall, rock wall
––––––
O mental gymnastics!
Yeah car-bomb okay
Apollo in chariot
Yeah Santa in sleigh
Yeah No one to drive
the car
There’s time to fall
Rock wall, rock wall
––––––
I’ll be the wall
& you remain
in an intermediate form
till I say.
––––––
Rock wall, rock wall,
There’s time to fall
Rock wall, rock wall,
There’s time to fall
The bed is soft
The moon is gone
The TV is off
The night is long
There’s time to fall,
Rock wall, rock wall
Rock wall, rock wall,
There’s time to fall
––––––
It’s pretty self-explanatory
It may stay small
It may rhyme
Between what is the rhyme it to be placed?
Dark wall, to stand out on the pale yellow hillside?
A pale yellow creature with dark stripes
to be taken as a boon to the people
Hashi found one inside the wall &
we couldn’t tell if it lived there or how it got there
––––––
Wall, with grafitti
of poison-arrow frogs:
dark red, bright yellow,
or mottled black and green
A frog’s a little person and
a head is a hall if
the Is of existence isn’t
the Is of bestowal
Bestowal, withdrawal,
of head, and hall
Silent, and black
& green, and fine
**
return to sawbuck 2.4
**
Jon Woodward lives in Boston and works at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology. His second book of poems, Rain, was published in 2006 by Wave Books.
Labels: 2.4, jon woodward
