Saturday, March 10, 2012



    Drifting topoi

the black viola is a kind of purple, really,
as is the black tulip
       imagine giving
     the poems of Thomas Chatterton
to a teenage existential communist
   who's already
      slightly rebellious and slightly sad

                                but this is a dream
or the technique of calling it that
     or the topos -
      for instance,
(in a dream)          Guo Jian is boiling
crayfish on the Ile des Pins,      the telephone
   is ringing,       a clock's melting
                                  all over the tablecloth -
the outer limits of the island
            are lit by meteoric showers
     at the same spot the pilot
   crashes the sea-plane
                                     en route to lunch

                       *
 

S. asks
 'how was your "holiday" ?'
  (not very Barthesian  of her is it ?)
         - as if leaving Sydney
  to spend two weeks on an island
in the South Pacific Ocean     could only be
a "holiday" -
    as if an absolute function
     of oceanic cultures
is to provide a "holiday"
&, according
           to Barthes,
       writers don't have "holidays".
  why waste time ?

                    *

      why waste words ?

                    *

enter -
  a topos of entertainment -
there's Barry Crocker
        & Barry Crocker's son,
if I was on
    advice-giving terms
                    with Guo Jian
I'd suggest he do
       the Crocker family portrait.

Guo Jian from Duyun -
   a chaotic southwest Chinese city -
from the Peoples' Liberation Army,
    from Beijing, from Tiananmen Square,
from underground
               Yuanmingyuan -
a topos of parodic locale
                          compels Guo
             to paint a leaping monkey
                          escaping every garish picture

      entertainment topos -
                (monkey's bum)

Barry Crocker,
from loonery to croonery -
    (the biz),
        would probably prefer
a studio photo, wouldn't he ?
             his son might too -
         in black & white
or toned a silvery blue -
            enhance the bland, dad
 

the topos of the b&w photo
    begins -
" Black & white photos
       tell the "truth" -
       that's why
       insurance agencies
       use them "

                  *

the topos of the gothic university precinct
predictably sets the parameters
    for, in fact, several topoi in one essay -
clever zen
                      (should do the trick)
&, preferable to the pump
                           of imperatives
or     somewhere, over the radar,
               monkeys leaping into air

a topos of modesty -       twenty-first
       century protopersonalities unite
          (humbly)





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