Thursday, April 8, 2010

The Ill Beehives



My head pops off & this is where it dawns
to float & collect over nectar floors:
suffocating under self-spun honey
to conclude polluting smoky vertical combs: again:
stinging stinging stung by empty
sheets' regurgitating flare gun.
Please
I tried to send
I'll try again demain
after the glass magnifies the basic truth:

the magic center thrives in burning space.
Abstract accident soarings
wheeled free, now stroll
strangling boulevards of unquiet obliques &
carefully tended poppy beds.
Knocked out: wake:
vomit disease & royal spectacle
gritty here in the throat.
All we are permitted is to choke
on droning misdirections that

build
build up
build a new
wax museum
swarming far & wide
open to the public
dressed so nervously:
gaze on those eyes cloudy
with paint & blackened equilibria
below blue skies on sticky ground.

16 comments:

Cormac Brown said...

Je nai parle pas Amesoeurs.

I do however, do a monster impression of Jacques Pepin murdering English.


The language, not the people.

susan said...

I do like this version of concrete poetry. It grows like a pyramid toward an inevitable, disastrous end.

Tengrain said...

Graves, you swine, if this was actually posted by you, I have to reconsider your swinehood.

What is this, this melodic song on your blog? What could this mean? Just when I think I know better than to tell Click2Flash to let me see what obscenity you are thrusting upon us, you suddenly decide to put up something listenable, et en fraçaise, choute!

Regards,

Tengrain

Laura said...

I really wish that you lived just down the street. Sometimes with your poetry I wish I could just run over to you and say.. "Hey Randal.. what does this mean?" or "Explain this to me".
I can "feel" what the mood is, but am somehow incapable of grasping onto the meaning. (totally from my own lack of comprehension).

I often wonder if other people struggle as I do. It is quite frustrating when other people "get" things and I don't. :(

I loved the music and the mood of the poem. :) It's a rainy day here and it fits my mood.

((Hugs))
Laura

Demeur said...

I think he was just having a more lucid moment. That happens from time to time you know.

Life As I Know It Now said...

I like it, a lot!

"All we are permitted is to choke
on droning misdirections that

build
build up
build a new
wax museum"

Mary Ellen said...

did
did you
did you get
did you get stung
did you get stung by
did you get stung by a bee?

Shit, that hurts.

Commander Zaius said...

Great stuff Randal, I like the imagery but I would be lying if I said I understood it. But I just blame myself and my 10th grade English Lit teacher who was also the football coach, it was a bad combination.

Tom Harper said...

Je ne sais pas l'Amesoeurs soit, mais ils sonnent bien.

S.W. Anderson said...

Randal, glad to see you're taking the Army's advice: "Be all you can bee!"

Or something like that. :)

Randal Graves said...

cormac, I imagine that the culinary techniques of Monsieur Pepin will come in handy after the breakdown of society.

susan, if that's the sentiment taken, then I was successful. Though I like to think of the end as less a, er, concrete break then a spiral without end.

tengrain, don't blame me, blame l'invisible rayon socialist contrôle de l'esprit!

sunshine, you want me to live down the street so we can play good cop/bad cop.

Mood is what I go for 99% of the time. I don't have anything profound or illuminating to say and what something "means" is different for everyone; I know what influenced me to write a particular line or use a particular word. What do you get out of it? Even if you loathe it, it's something.

demeur, all those meds, but the comedown is brutal.

liberality, see, everyone share in the misery! Take that, Up With People.

nunly, good thing I'm not allergic. Hospitals only have basic cable.

BB, I've never heard of that combination before. Really? I hate to generalize (oh, who am I kidding, I love to generalize) but the football coaching staff at my high school didn't exactly seem to be real keen on the classics.

tom, un EP, un album et ils ont depuis rompu.

SWA, where's a 70s killer bee disaster flick when you need one. ;-)

Cormac Brown said...

Undoubtedly, as we will really have to gussy-up that canned food, and whatever has the misfortune to be still alive and not human.

bobcat editor said...

I don't feel like talking today.

Holte Ender said...

The cover art was a little foreboding, reminded me of where I grew up with bigger buildings, but the music sounded quite bright, although the Frenchies were probably hopping and skipping over murder and mayhem. Good poem.

Utah Savage said...

I'm impressed. And maybe a little worried. And a tad left out since I don't speak French.

Randal Graves said...

cormac, as long as there's still some of that dehydrated NASA ice cream.

übermilf's 99 cent disguise III, Esq., I didn't either. Thus, no post.

holte, it's a weird record. A bit of that, a bit of Joy Division homage, a bit of post-black metal. Odd, enthralling stuff.

utah, don't worry, I don't speak it either.