Dreg Doc #11

~ on the occasion of imminence ~

all calculation all bricolage : I have no poet. ethics.
~ Friederike Mayröcker, “23.2.12” (trans. Donna Stonecipher)

Be back later I’m vocalizing
~ Cher, tweet on Oct. 14, 2020

praised both Wisteria & Forsythia on the baby-name forum ] can’t remember which one my fellow posters endorsed (only one, the milquetoasts, & hardly a plurality) ] prhps any moment can suit a panegyric ] it is soon my mother’s “birthday” & celebration’s impious ] at least macabre & (in) vain ] everyone’s effusive re: Camellia, Dahlia, Zinnia, & Linnaea because they resemble names (Camilla, Delia, Xenia, & Lydia/Linda?) & are thus easy options ] so graspable & proximal (but one can’t find pulchritude in platitude) ] Wisteria & Forsythia too encode the botanists’ vainglory ] (temerity, to “entrace” one’s man self) but too preserve a dolor ] prhps it’s the sibilants, that any bloom etc. can be a dirge ] constantly vivisecting screens in search of mothers (need to keep reading L. Mulvey!) ] “was I a good boy today, Mrs. S?” ] every day of 4th grade the teacher’s supplicant was I ] unctuousness prhps the pensée’s mode of prostration ] just yesterday posted about Mimosa with fervid disclaimer: I DO NOT CARE ABOUT THE ASSOCIATION WITH ALCOHOL ] o Mimosa, the poem is that vegetable—“cuddly” in Sp. & the genus of “touch-me-not” / “shameplant” / “sensitive plant” ] Mimosa pudica → “pudica” unequivocally indexical of shame, o Lat. ] too just yesterday stealth pencil perforated my palm ] had grasped without realizing I had the pencil! ] so near the fossilized lead-bit from that day in 4th grade, almost encrypted in my hand ] so eager to answer a question I clapped with the pencil ] “You caught me off guard. I was close to immortality.” –I. Huppert as “Frau” in Malina ] in that moment her propinquity to the stove-flame ] so perspirant, so limpid IH was in that film ] & quite pullulant those blazes ] a threesome I may not have (so putative the pleasure) prhps prompted (my viewing of) the film ] but I could not the other night persuade Seth to behold IH in The Piano Teacher (La Pianiste, lit. The Pianist) ] he sought a more prurient film ] o the triadism of Malina → Frau, Ivan, Malina (a man, “animal” she derives via dithyrambic scribbling), all figures, prhps triad’s fallacious ] I read the two are echoic or schizotypical of Frau? ] the weekend was truly Austrian & annotated by P. Bridgers on loop ] in The Death of Virgil Virgil deems literature & himself just execrable ] “baby it’s Hall-o-ween, & we can be any-thing” ] o Phoebe ] o Virgil, speaking to extirpate yourself & so orgiastic your monkish rhapsodies! ] “baroque,” “rococo,” or “magniloquent” (earnest transparency of “-loquent”, the whole word prhps less bespoke) → others, others, or I describing my writing ] Mrs. L (9th grade Eng.): “If you write like this next year with Mr. J, you’re walking into the fire!” ] the spiders, the spiders, o the lithe-legged lintel-surfing crablets ] they appear, utterly Scorpionic (a water sign but how torridly the scorpions et al. thrive, how bereftly) & with hope amuletic ] I imagine her re-immanent ] the frivolity of saying so 

~ 10.26.2020

PAUL BISAGNI

Paul Bisagni (he/him/his) is a lapsed classicist, one-time applied linguist, and current MFA candidate in poetry at the University of Idaho. His poems can be found in Dream Pop Journal and Terse Journal and are forthcoming in Guesthouse, Afternoon Visitor, Ethel Zine, Heavy Feather Review, and Tilted House Review. Alternative versions of him float around Instagram and Twitter @sapphojane.