Hot Convulsions of Distance, Bleats of Temporal Ignorance, Synapse of Morse but No Code

Joey Ramone was born 61 years ago today, Pete Townsend was born 67 years ago today, both were on the daily soundtrack for young years and deserve notable if not holy days here. Am tired of most boths' songs, thoroughly sick of the classics on radio or muzak: I don't want to be sedated and, yes, I know about new bosses. Still, I've always liked the above Ramones and I've always loved Quadrophenia, forgive me, even if I listen to each only once a year.

• Portraits from the occupation.
• Occupy Oakland is dead.
• Nucleus of the new society?
• Professional centrists review books by professional conservative and professional liberal.
• Oopsy.
• Professional progressive mocks Romney's laugh.
• History 101.
• Unimaginable atrocities.
• Silos of capitalism.
• The meaning of meaning.
• A sequence on sequence.
• Sweet concoction to drown meaning.
• What is metal?
• Don Paterson? Good thing I have access to a university library.
• Gaddis' self-portrait.
• There's a reason Robert Pollard has a permanent spot on my Sillyass Desert Island.

SATELLITE CONVULSIONS

Ben Doller

When I bend back to gaze at the satellite convulsions, I
am an aqueduct for twilit rain. Quite literally I stand

in the littoral zone: a lens--no an aqueous humor, my
feet on the land below the high-water mark, my hand

a glazed waver: hello light-purple lights, hello red spots,
you've beaten the stars out tonight but you're struggling with the


atmosphere, ain't ye? Over centuries the river became not
a river: Lethe's end crept together--self-scavenging sea

snake--& the middle filled with water--morphology dubbed it
a lake & now the moon swims in it & the moon orbits it &

the moon tidally tugs on it. The moon is a satellite in a fit
of paroxysm. One minute past, I emptied an aluminum can

of dull opiate to the drains to wash down my antipsychotics
& then Lethe-wards slunk I. There must be this wire shaking

loose in my mind, an unattended firehouse, a spasmodic
filament attempting to cool the baby planet but lacerating

precious gray matter. Thought leaves no vacancy for memory--
I forget & forget the rules, the thirst an auger, rain only whetting

it, I bend & lap some lake up, tongue it, suck the silty mammary
right where a light from the firmament meets it. I keep forgetting

the rules, a Ptolemaniac with stars & suns circling me; I keep
missing my cues, can't arrange the particles moments are made of--

and it's all good!--because when I bend seriously back & peep
at the satellite convulsions I am a sluiceway for night rain. If I love

at least I love aptly, terminally, like a man who loves his dinner until
he's done with it, then settles to the couch to easy pixilated dreams

(bounced off, yes, satellites, & beamed into a pale dish). And still,
even unfettered by history or hope, the world does not seem

shocking--simply something to fly a canvas balloon around, to
dig a hole in. To climb into. To allow to fill with water, perhaps

it is raining, perhaps you dig below the watertable; it gushes through
the dirt; your bath is drawn & in it are drawn (sputniks & stars) maps

& charts with which to constellate your body. Connect the dots.
A little ladle with four handles--a tiny light strobes in the cup, in hot

convulsions of distance, bleats of temporal ignorance, synapse of morse
but no code, blood but no pulse, the stream but no mouth or source.