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School Pictures:
Portrait Production
poetry journal by Benjamin Henry
(
[email protected])
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September 10
And then immensity filled his thoughts-
-clubbed, clamored, climbing, aching:
Restlessly, he compressed,
severed a connection
[no embrace to grip]
swollen, weak fingers,
wet eyes.
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September 16
Albany
South Pine ruled vagrancy,
translate, or re-drop
for fortuitous ambiance.
Imagine colors,
original names out of context:
blur, make judgment suffer,
reduce worries to possibilities
Like the thought of cold,
seeping through a thin window
on a day in early Autumn
with the drapes pulled closed
and clothed
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October 8
Re-constituted,
in relative numbers,
we can always add plus or minus one
or take into account the climatic temperature
and barometric pressure.
Variables are never constant:
an intricate chaotic pattern forms,
we choose colors at random.
An inner light pulses outward,
waiting to explode
or the surrounding environment threatens
integrity with an implosion
Sanity and equilibrium are continuously sought.
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Figments keep floating
and I land on them and drift
with a slight breeze like dust
in the sunlight
One corner of my floating mattress
is nailed down and roped to a stable anchor.
Warm, soothing light
now makes me squint
close my eyes and concentrate on listening
the soft hum of the refrigerator.
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October 11, Columbus Day
Wandering Wobblestone,
laundering laundoliers,
quiet senses already allocated for yesterday
and now transmuted
into disturbance
subject covered before,
but this time more crowded,
this time more diverse,
Maybe the community opened a floodwall.
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October 13
Frontiers, escalating: superimposed --
floating,
exists the one carpeted step
and a sound like rambling toward oblivion,
a clanking
and litter
refused at the
corner
a bus stop
and waiting people,
a table, oval, with chairs:
Cushioned,
I sit,
comfortable access
to my environmental controls
Shut off more than the lights!
With electricity
close all of my senses!
T-valve, compression,
into the tank,
surrounded by metal
in hollow ringing.
Dawn comes at nightfall.
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October 27
All-bringers, converge on this point!
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October 29
Inevitableness succeeding an entirety:
perceived as circumstantial; no evidence
wasted, no time waited, no wants to worry.
Speaking specifically of those elements,
in this context transfigured to resemble ---
amorphorous, not distinctly shaped --
Relate oppositions, tie bonds,
accumulate strength and power and other chemicals
necessary to sustain a common feeling ...
Unity taped and recorded and held together
by shaking hands sweaty and beady, gloved
with supple leather, restrained, amplified <
Arington famble win wobbleton ifbee toomuch
and angerson arlington ashberry cream
Together, again here, sleeping, to dream.
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Perplexed, somewhat terrified, he hobbles,
for gaining ground on this fleshy turf
requires carefully placed steps.
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Incredulous inconsistencies and ambiance:
Bright!
Followed by lowly slithering and gutter.
Those dents, required by circumstance
to aviate and lift, move from point B to A,
backwards in definition and radiance:
Along a referential measurement,
Increment a landmark, remember and foretell.
(And if she spoke any clearer, like one past encounter, remembering an absolute, a stop ...)
So to continue, ascertain certainties like texture
or taste or insertion
but still uncertain,
still moving.
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October 31, Halloween.
devices are working but worthless,
combined in a compilation,
a towering monolith, a phallus,
a message to america of complication
and harmony in work and spending dollars
on air time, channeled through a tunnel
underground, where workers plough
through layers of lode and lay wires
to connect and separate those above,
way above in the open air,
time rolled in negative layers, concern
for Friday's arrival and checks locked
at the back door constantly guarded,
and waiting on break, sitting with a stare
over heads and beyond resounding voices.
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November 1
Part One
taken aback, back taker, take me, take my back,
return with receipt, launder, wash!
Plunder, abash, for no litter dare strike ground
or carry purple royalty to altars or shitting cats!
slumber or rollover or grab covers or cover
or jump down into holes to protect yourself!
I AM Coming
or not walking or not driving and not flying
but here I will be, and if you believe,
you will receive my flesh that you so desire
and dire songs and laundry sheets, lifting,
curling, probing:
for that program is next, a sub-process,
a mental image, a plan to embrace you,
fore-thought to enrapture
and, waiting in silence, maybe too long too capture
or enlighten -- but weigh down and cover
all that has already been filled.
Part Two
the ambition to become and degrade,
an essence of green, a monetary flame:
Build a wall of ambiance,
radiate only on the inside!
Room and time for planned collisions,
enlarged engagement, pneumatic personalities,
scheduled copulation!
Fly skyward by fornication,
connect with ecstasy through ejaculation!
And contrast with relaxation and dry comfort
And towel away unwanted moisture
Find absolute absolution, physically stimulated
mental awareness.
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November 4
In proper sequence, memory may shift;
Mr. necessity requires the following:
divert attention and water elsewhere;
already a flood, hunger facilitates personal growth
and oxygen, bottled, captured for future use:
Memorize random particles with sweeping gestures,
bring into focus,
articulate your desires!
Bang, ki-bash, wander woodle
wind stocking hunt hold for later
consumption, consuming extended f o r h o u r s
never end, never end, neVER END!
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November 5
Once again in absence; >
defile string, hold a value in ransom,
for information must, by inherent necessity,
come at a cost, a penalty.
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November 10
Sweet ecstasy, sharply amplified by membrane;
on a molecular level simply scientific:
to embrace, weave with hands held together,
separated into distinct components,
Parts joined, atomic infrastructure
and instructions to comprehend meaning
from simplicity at the most minute level
INGrained,
tarnished,
protected by wax polish
Under your furniture find identities;
you have already established shrines:
worship or masturbate for redemption
Confiscate this library,
wealth,
Transcendent instruments.
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November 15
Scanning into eyes, almost ripped and fired
but long and accidental, wondering as washed.
Too late for patience wasted water
dripping faucet open blood wounds;
Ribs smothered sheets sticking covers wet and dirty.
But before warm or secure but hostile home warning
life worm boring blessed and superstitious.
Ambulance trucking wheat disintegrate farm for spreading
and factory plumage, feathers flown brown mud
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November 16
If washing saved skin scrubbed raw, wringing,
front door opening heard closed forgotten locked.
Connected to half-naked, vulnerable, admitted:
strangeness in solidarity like radio conversation,
spotlights bare stage dusty waxed.
Sterile organized hidden comparison with
cold water left running and then dripping overnight
unnoticed, invisible, except for sound.
Grab those waves floating at you!
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November 17
Upon and enter into or on
justification trends
transient in opposition.
The Featured forum closed to visitors,
watch television news,
listen to selected and appropriate radio signals.
The sponsor tonight demands your justification
to buy products unequaled in their individuality,
standing alone in a private aisle,
no need for selection,
the competition is over and
natural selection has pronounced a winner.
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November 22
Rendering judgment,
composing facts to accommodate situations,
parallel forces cross and collide.
Combination inevitable but impossible:
to save scrutiny and management
use physical distance
though we have never touched.
Approach concentration, employment,
advertise in bold a necessity; congealment.
Proto-melt.
Congruity washed
Affable as understandable,
and inside pure flow, saturation.
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Guided or propelled,
engaged in
the act
of
withdrawal
Because penetration,
an old memory,
pituitary or mind control.
Embellish.
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November 25, Thanksgiving Day
simplicity resting in intimacy,
awash;
here soldiers cry
loosen grips,
gripe
for forever turn (and return)
hold in arms in embrace
whipped to punish remember a tomb
and there rear entrance escape
enshrined mantle centerpiece
Plum frightened scary faces,
hair mingling with long fingers
Lick along ridges, water pouring
animated by creation of new form
help innocence kill waiver
for fortune exceeds fate in Lottery
Spin imbecilic fantasy, velvet table top
breast support for salary dollar earnings
Wake to tv ramblings and hyper-culture
slang remote display and audience talk
Corporate ingrain situated to recover
along ambulance streamlined forest rain
Gaze deep below color and texture
and orgasm release forgotten.
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Contrast Awaken
A dizzy state
Ringing to beckon
Amber polish
Shoe mate team.
Shoe mate me.
I am shoe.
varnish
tender wash
dry in moist
salt and skin.
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November 27
who desire for fortune rested, perfumed:
recognition like sulfur, shining
across a hay field, spotlight
eyes reflected, held in trance
wheels spun digging ruts
causing motion making distance
measuring speed against time
shoulders showing slightly
and to her neck: a solid stare
Guiding voices finally recognized
behind their disguise
intensify for all rational purpose, re-order to randomize
but past contact never severed
Sunglasses scanning colors in black and white
days of the past --
if I did create a you
there is much now that reverberates -- out of necessity.
My guides speak also. My mates are landmarks.
My friends are comparisons.
I lead in this direction
simply through omnipotence
and belief in my god
Touching me is illegal
and i guard security
against rape.
Truth given to trust never willingly submitted anymore
-- How rash now defined ambivalence
Don't believe this and take his word, the experienced
and ritualized married and other virtues,
virtually children and trading merchandise.
Maybe I will just send you some of my poetry
to explain, for this is unclear, my rhetoric
cannot articulate or maybe the tools
are inadequate or the theories dissolved
Ambush rampage animal
vehemence
and studied
Constant torture produce results equal to work,
Directions on the back of the degree:
Insanity defined as non-social-conformity
Remitted forever,
exposed continually
to the television altar:
Ordained in visual medium
between relevance distinction shows a changing,
emission at the apogee of perspective
If the word has been said or used before
I will not sin-steal but place responsibility
on your knowledge
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November 29
Homogeneity? On perplexion style architecture
blended to perform in a multitude of tasks or situations:
who designed me right, engineered my parts,
the long equations and thought processes involved
prevent random chance, but pattern in chaos
enlivens explanation, conforms to relativity.
Capture and examine;
The territory here compared to
graphic landscape
Enlargen, compare again to automobile distance
or travel to forget time and reference.
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Aspire to inspiration, the levelheaded employ
an agglomeration of tools for soothing
Examine for animation in unfrequented parts
outside of political borders
Hammering the wretched nailed to public posts
for video viewing television broadcast
Background ambiance surmounts musical scenery
and pencil line stencils permanently engraved
Beyond generational survival, beyond granite headstone
past ancient monoliths and excavations and primitive pottery.
The hidden speakers bleat behind mesh, their message
one of magnetic variations, of amplitude modifications
and unprecedented harmony.
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November 30
The simplicity boasts of you
in vision sequenced parts of conversation
and mixed monopoly relational factors
The simplicity is of golden hair
and attention talk in voice low under prattle
gossip that surrounds and laments
Cannot follow the pattern and enjoy its complexity;
bored with the leavened abridged
crossing foot brick paths (not diverged) worn trodden
Not easy but practiced, routine
kitchen laundry bathroom work traffic sleep
buying, spent invested wasted
And division, pulling smoke into our lungs,
holding intricate details spawning unforeseen permeations
Cannot write of you; the pen degrades the simplicity
like shattering crystalline lattice
and complicated metaphors
self-extracting critical values.
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December 1
Intricate volumes fill closely guarded spaces
The watchman spies, shift ending in just under six hours
and the advantage of coffee in-between
Lunch continues like an old adage, is given like Christmas
trees and icing for decoration and to consume electricity
Hydro-electric power is sufficient
for recreational purposes;
Dams built on flat land can alleviate arid memories
and irrational fears of a line ending.
Just to be inevitable,
as if chance could produce metaphor,
above other organisms,
God enters the cinema again;
we don't feel God's presence in this hyper-space:
infusion bound circumstantial to originate
in purpose bound inside simple institution,
intuitive raised platform speakers and followers
So transcription can occur
So collective memory can exist
So intelligence can equal knowledge.
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School Pictures:
Portrait Production
poetry journal by Benjamin Henry
Copyright 1994 Benjamin Henry and HUB Press. I grant permission to
transmit this document, in electronic form, as long as it is kept
in-tact, in its entirety, with this trailer information.
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Parts of this poem were previously published in inter\face 6,
an electronic lit. 'zine. email me for subscription details.
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send any comments or contributions to
[email protected]
or
12 Morningside Dr.
Schenectady, NY 12303
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