These three new pairs of poems by Albert Mobilio are rare instances of artistic demolition and poetic erasure aimed inward. Artists and writers have long appropriated materials from the world, including other artists; our fading fad for erasure poetry yet another example. Often, the concept is all that matters and the source material is readily trampled upon. The concept at work here, one is happy to report, is interesting, but not nearly as interesting as the poems themselves—in which each ‘pair’ is a truncated, redacted or reduced, entirely new version (or anti-version) taken from the text above. One thinks of the gorgeous ravages of Rosamond Purcell’s art—where books, dice, herring bones or other primordial bits of natural and manmade materials are set to fester, linger, auto-destruct (the image above is from Purcell’s Bookworm, from W.W. Norton). Yet Mobilio, like Purcell, isn’t after the cheap trick of chic ruins or easy implosion. (For me, the destructive impulse, even as “art,” tires quickly.) Instead, the poet has found a constraint that interrogates the finished original, and demanded from it a lessening, whether sibling or offspring, a sort of mental rhyme (or not) in dissolving form. A patient composure counterbalances the chaos of erosion. So the reader may judge for herself, even as the poet, musically and mysteriously, already has.
–Adam Fitzgerald, Poetry Editor
The judgment scene
The judgment scene was laugh-track time we sought
tension between pulsing, neon bodies, their betrayals
oral & otherwise scary was the sense that human
touch was nothing more than loud more loudly
nights when trouble means an open mouth,
its portion divvied out to words so different from
each other you can’t circulate one noun among
Some god-forsaken spot men pulled their faces
toward then turned their faces back the way
they’re made we get the point—the window, the alley,
the criss-cross motion—no one wants to travel
unless the shoulder dips, the hand repeats
whatever hitch-hike works & straight again you
see that roman wall the higher up it goes we’re true
In the future our souls as thin as TV shows we wreck
the air for disembodied, snake-shaped sounds,
they fill the auditorium & feeble love
is nothing we can add much to except we can
make lists of what deserves to die & other numbered
fates bare-headed days allow
this span of glossy instants clocked & deeply rung
the scene
we sought
bodies, their betrayals
the sense
was nothing more
an open mouth,
different from
each noun among
faces
the way:
the window
no one wants
the hand
works & you
see it goes higher up
souls wreck
the disembodied
love
nothing much, we
die & other numbered
fates
this instant deep
In the midst of this widely unread
In midst of this widely unread life in the line
outside a washroom where truly we are as hollow
as our own confessions those shaken
out of us by close reading tomes about the middle
ages the sun darkening for a dying pope & wintry
crowns jeweled with groans we wore our sexual
sorrow to warm the indentation left in bed
If you wait long enough songs come they have
momentum that shows itself amid shouting as
the ambulance arrives we called
ourselves skyward rising through bluish haze,
the ignorant mouths their nouns around
us—winch, tube, carpet, hive, hiatus—altogether
unreasonably dense these sirens find their mark
The point of philosophy was saving whatever
face we could in this otherwise incurable
land its spat out river, smudged birds & fingernails
dirty with perplexities we strummed slick
smells from our hidden parts the breath glistens
like fresh meat cut, splayed & left for flies we brought
our wrath to perfection so it might finally end
the midst of this
unread line
hollow
as our
reading about
the darkening, dying
groans we
left
songs
amid shouting as
we called
skyward, haze
around
us—altogether
dense
philosophy
otherwise
muddy fingernails
we strummed
the breath
we brought
to perfection
This dancer is out
This dancer is out of step with that one whenever
the mood makes you wish you
weren’t as devout as you are your mental
equipment dependent on bread, smokeless cold
& brooms come home to roost in hairline
cracks only visible when close enough to sense
the empty knell our puny human strike allows
The nightfall was beauty was strange in its hills,
its desolations penciled on scrap paper,
letters to ancestors & you have become over
aware of mouth movements their history
bursting with cell block scenes & mispronunciations
of dirty words the sleepless camera’s
focus pulling back though the actor isn’t pleased
You bring money & show off your face & opposites
attract indifferently but that’s the loneliness
of sand that’s nothing to me & thoughts
by the millions go begging, truly an exalted life
you’re giving yourself to the agitated air,
smug boots & mock sensation: who are your gods,
are they the ones that fight the daytime’s fire
this dancer
step whenever
the mood makes
your mental
smoke
come home
visible to sense
the empty human
nightfall was
scrap paper,
you have
history
bursting with mispronunciations
dirty, sleepless,
pleased:
show opposites—
that’s the loneliness
of nothing & thoughts
exalted
the agitated,
smug gods
are fire
The featured image is from Rosamond Purcell’s Bookworm
http://www.photoeye.com/bookstore/citation.cfm?catalog=NT179
