"Gene Wagendorf III is student and grifter from Chicago. He loves the beach, but hates water. On a good day his work smells like bowling alleys and sounds like old typewriters. When he's not writing he spends his time complaining about the city-wide smoking ban, working with Write For A Change, and trying to find poker games full of flounders. His work has appeared in issues of Kill Poet, Word Riot, Vowel Movements, Robot Communism and Verve."
Technically, we're all dead
"Technically we are all dead
this is my own thought! a hail of hell!
Saint Dionysius reminds us of flight to unknowable Knowledge
the doctrine of initiates completes the meditation!"
- Phil Lamantia
Born under the liberal western sun
A 1927 son of magic and myths
Spawned under Pan's gleaming eye
Let loose on a world aroused enough
To inspire you with a View of Dali And allow a laminated playground for creation
A supermarket Adonis toting cucumbers and pears Sneaking snaps of onion in the backrooms Of Blue Collar cathedrals Scribbling looping words on thin trees Mapping out phosphorus kisses Winking feedback soaked sockets
Conjuring up surreal whipped portraits
Of existence and the nuts and bolts of the world
You boarded the most challenging platforms in search
Of a new perspective for thought
Another angle at which to consider the business
Of human life
Muddled by the tension between earth’s aches and
The simple and elegant beauty of private moments
Your words soared across sand-speckled pomegranate skies
And creaking saline floors where ancient secrets
Manifested into hallucinogenic dreams of children
As of yet unbaptized by the terrors of absurdity
Never a spoken word caught in its own meat saying nothing
You both pulverized and delicately wielded
The velvet lips of time
And rubbed the innocent belly of the universe
With the affection of a mother wondering where her child will go in the world
And the universe wondered back And your travels have been crimson dyed in the burning gas giants of heaven
And you've left us with a silent legacy of inspection
And an unmasking of societal insanity
And the overwhelming joy of floating in no current
What I hope you find now is a cloud to sit on
Some honorable place in the afterlife with a telescope to watch
When five years from now a kid discovers you Creeping in some narcotic night Sneaking glances from behind melting monuments of lust And separation
Finds himself glued to the pages you dropped along your path
Eating every peyote syllable
Digesting and sizzling from every pore of his body Without the background required to miss you
When the kid yammers about meeting you
And reads your poems to his friends in a forest at midnight
Burning the tips of his fingers with matches to see
Every spot of ink on the page Hissing and crackling like holy fireworks Splashing bliss before the open curtains Of his eyes
Another voluntary synesthesia
The head shaking youth bubbling glow
Of the eternal life of language pouring out of someone new
And how you've captured them
And how you project through every questioning body
To pick up a copy of Sphinxes
In this I think you'll beat what was meant a compliment
The day they hailed you as "a voice that rises once in a hundred years"
Because every time a kid doesn't know you don't exist But you do
And the slippery English thaws into his brain
Or tumbles out of his clumsy mouth
Your voice volcanoes up
And bridges the gap
Between the dual personalities of the world you struggled to paste together
And the generations lost inside it
...
anything is not right so
layitonme
i'm elliptical
moonshine light glowing
before you stop
what?
yr doing
b r e a t h e
cancel remarks, abstain-
bad sex bad sex bad sex
sexsexsex
boom...
tinker with machines long enough
and they'll blow
quack and cover
puritan bombs exploding
bemoaning belittling bewitching
just bitching
the fire is going out and with it the (inner)light
i cannot wield this pen(is) without comparison
to dead language dead men dead laws dead ideology
putting a hand over my mouth
and a bleep in my speach
my dotdotdots lay stagnant
as i watch a zombie christ parade down michigan avenue
and nobody says anything (worth saying)
i've given up rather be
in bed
late nights planning out later breakfasts
a she and a mattress making a sandwich of me
all ham&cheese
and saving some for the poor
youknowthere'
This is the blog for the poetry journal O Sweet Flowery Roses. Russell Jaffe writes it the way he is writing this 3rd person right now. The journal is osweetfloweryroses.com
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Featured Poet: Gene Wagendorf III
"Gene Wagendorf III is student and grifter from Chicago. He loves the beach, but hates water. On a good day his work smells like bowling alleys and sounds like old typewriters. When he's not writing he spends his time complaining about the city-wide smoking ban, working with Write For A Change, and trying to find poker games full of flounders. His work has appeared in issues of Kill Poet, Word Riot, Vowel Movements, Robot Communism and Verve."
Technically, we're all dead
"Technically we are all dead
this is my own thought! a hail of hell!
Saint Dionysius reminds us of flight to unknowable Knowledge
the doctrine of initiates completes the meditation!"
- Phil Lamantia
Born under the liberal western sun
A 1927 son of magic and myths
Spawned under Pan's gleaming eye
Let loose on a world aroused enough
To inspire you with a View of Dali And allow a laminated playground for creation
A supermarket Adonis toting cucumbers and pears Sneaking snaps of onion in the backrooms Of Blue Collar cathedrals Scribbling looping words on thin trees Mapping out phosphorus kisses Winking feedback soaked sockets
Conjuring up surreal whipped portraits
Of existence and the nuts and bolts of the world
You boarded the most challenging platforms in search
Of a new perspective for thought
Another angle at which to consider the business
Of human life
Muddled by the tension between earth’s aches and
The simple and elegant beauty of private moments
Your words soared across sand-speckled pomegranate skies
And creaking saline floors where ancient secrets
Manifested into hallucinogenic dreams of children
As of yet unbaptized by the terrors of absurdity
Never a spoken word caught in its own meat saying nothing
You both pulverized and delicately wielded
The velvet lips of time
And rubbed the innocent belly of the universe
With the affection of a mother wondering where her child will go in the world
And the universe wondered back And your travels have been crimson dyed in the burning gas giants of heaven
And you've left us with a silent legacy of inspection
And an unmasking of societal insanity
And the overwhelming joy of floating in no current
What I hope you find now is a cloud to sit on
Some honorable place in the afterlife with a telescope to watch
When five years from now a kid discovers you Creeping in some narcotic night Sneaking glances from behind melting monuments of lust And separation
Finds himself glued to the pages you dropped along your path
Eating every peyote syllable
Digesting and sizzling from every pore of his body Without the background required to miss you
When the kid yammers about meeting you
And reads your poems to his friends in a forest at midnight
Burning the tips of his fingers with matches to see
Every spot of ink on the page Hissing and crackling like holy fireworks Splashing bliss before the open curtains Of his eyes
Another voluntary synesthesia
The head shaking youth bubbling glow
Of the eternal life of language pouring out of someone new
And how you've captured them
And how you project through every questioning body
To pick up a copy of Sphinxes
In this I think you'll beat what was meant a compliment
The day they hailed you as "a voice that rises once in a hundred years"
Because every time a kid doesn't know you don't exist But you do
And the slippery English thaws into his brain
Or tumbles out of his clumsy mouth
Your voice volcanoes up
And bridges the gap
Between the dual personalities of the world you struggled to paste together
And the generations lost inside it
...
anything is not right so
layitonme
i'm elliptical
moonshine light glowing
before you stop
what?
yr doing
b r e a t h e
cancel remarks, abstain-
bad sex bad sex bad sex
sexsexsex
boom...
tinker with machines long enough
and they'll blow
quack and cover
puritan bombs exploding
bemoaning belittling bewitching
just bitching
the fire is going out and with it the (inner)light
i cannot wield this pen(is) without comparison
to dead language dead men dead laws dead ideology
putting a hand over my mouth
and a bleep in my speach
my dotdotdots lay stagnant
as i watch a zombie christ parade down michigan avenue
and nobody says anything (worth saying)
i've given up rather be
in bed
late nights planning out later breakfasts
a she and a mattress making a sandwich of me
all ham&cheese
and saving some for the poor
youknowthere'
