tHe cleAve mAtrix

tHe cleAve mAtrix

“How much of poetry is
unprovoked thought?”
—Clark Coolidge,
The Crystal Text

what provokes—cleavage?
when your mind—is blank?
a new kind of—collaboration?
two minds—in one?

are you—conversational?
are you into—dramatic monologue?
discussing—past present future?
writing it—in a new sense?

picasso—does it
juan gris—does it
kandinsky—does it
braque—does it

but what—do poets do?
do they do—cubism?
do they do—cubo-cleavage?
do they do—parasurrealism?

“It is a parasurrealism
that examines its own
lyrical structure…
a lively, dramatic
edginess, a visceral
sense of “being there.”
—Charles Borkhuis,
“Writing from Inside Language:
Late Surrealism and Textual Poetry
in France and the United States,”
Telling It Aslant:Avant-Garde
Poetics of the 1990s

what provokes—the parasurreal?
when parataxis—gets pushy?
imaginative—and dishy?
disjunctive—discursive?

are you—transgressive?
are you into—subverting language?
disgusted by—past present future?
reading it—bores you?

proust—did it
jean genet—did it
huysmans—did it
wilde—did it

but what do—we poets do?
do we do—cleavage?
do we do—cubo-cleavage?
do we do—the American Tree?