January 18, 2008

we learned punk rock in hollywood


Christopher Wool, If You, 1992

Questions and Answers
-- by Nicanor Parra

do you believe it would be worth the trouble
to kill god
to see if that would straighten out the world?

--of course it would be

would it be worth the trouble
to risk your life
for an idea that might be false?

--of course it would be

I ask you now if it would be
worth the trouble to eat crab meat
worth the trouble to raise children
who will turn against
their elders?

--obviously yes
no, its worth the trouble

I ask you now if it would be worth
the trouble to play a record
the trouble to read a tree
the trouble to plant a book
if everything disappears
if nothing lasts?

--maybe it wouldn't be

don't cry

--I'm laughing

don't get born

--I'm dying


Flies on Shit
-- by Nicanor Parra

to this kind of gentleman -- to the tourist -- to the revolutionary
I'd like to ask a question:
have you ever seen a squadron of flies
racing around a pile of shit
come in for a landing and go to work on the shit?
have you seen flies some time or another on shit?

because I was born and raised with flies
in a house surrounded by shit.


Snow Drift
-- by Sarah Hannah

I only want to write about a space
Three-inches square, in the picket fence's
Stolid corner, the uncontested crevice
Boasting, suddenly, a jagged occurrence
Of snow, Alp-like, resting on the brief ledge
The wooden crossbeam makes: unlikely cliff,
However wedged, suggesting passage
Beyond lawn and property line, as if
Transgression could be intimately known
Through bold example in miniature,
On familiar ground, a trace of snow blown
On a fence, articulation of a dare:
To realize the route the mountain sees,
The fall to nether--valley, wild trees.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

i'm really into the drips off the text in this Wool piece. R. Prince's joke paintings are so beautiful and more clean than his cowboy photos (in my opinion)--this piece is a joke in itself, LOVE IT!!!! I stumbled upon some of Shaggy Flores poems, check em' out if you haven't.- N

10:09 PM  

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