salvador dali at burning man...
(-after Andy Verbooom's The Appendectomy of Kenpachiro Satsuma)
salvador dali at burning man
walking as
though he has seen
resplendent
the angels gamboling
in
terrifying aspect, mechanical powered
by people
inside
across the
plains
their
shadows stretching out
the
heralds of the heralds
at size
and then
how
everything moved in every direction
how every
frame froze in his shutter fast eye
dali
atomicus later reproducing one
at once in
the once at onceness
of the
things that had not yet begun
to drip
into the landscape languid
can three
cats thrown
again and
again, ever be the same
(the
changes minute and great)
suspended
as all things living be
incognito
mode
(-after
Liam Burke's twitter pome "Doomscrolling")
for god's
sake, you incompetent bard
just let
me level up, i'm so already tired
(1/6)
maybe you
were jilted by my thrice monthly tweets
surreptitious
sends of bear threads, no RTs
when you
started asking who is the bad art friend
bad
wolfing your way through my week
draining
wisdom 280 cursed symbols per round
(2/6)
who
doesn't know this story
is
naive, obsolete - do you even tweet?
the
point is to interact no matter how
bad
everything makes you feel, what is digital is
art,
and you have tried twice to read the saga
friend,
tried twice and failed,
maxed out my free views
(3/6)
of the
honoured nyt, who holds your hand
and promises
i can keep reading
keep
trying to be relevant
if i give
up addresses, the cost of five
strawberry
acai lemonade refreshers
or confess
my association with the social network -
(4/6)
con saving
throw (no bonus) enough to prevent me
from
reading more of the jinxed bat art friend scroll
not high
enough to spare me from your tome
of stories
about the story, the druid changing
from bear
to mouse to spider to air
(5/6)
whispers
our party's workhorse spell
vade
incognito et fac quod vis
(6/6)
hello
astronauts, welcome to earth*
(-after J.Bezos, W.Shatner, Q)
i'm a
rocket man of some renown —
my gold
command uniform you knew so well
with seams
that inspired confidence
if you
ever loved me all those years
with noses
pressed to tv sets
follow me
now
on your
phones and notebooks
as i stab
into space one last time
aboard the
new shepherd's stellar cock
a cowboy
afloat with the midas crowd
for the
first time i can remember
into the
blackest sky where i'd led you to believe
in the
limitless adventure
where skin
did not obstruct, poverty was unknown
and
medicine was free
where the
federation tipped the scales
of ecology
for dying planets
and help
was just a distress call away
in the
darkness between solar systems
let me
tell you, fandom
who watch
the evening news
in your worn-out
slippers at evening's end
when the
blue atmosphere whipped off like a sheet
removed
in your sleep
and i saw
we are surrounded by death, i knew
we're out
of time and have to do better —
don't you
want your grandchildren
to know
you saved the planet
with your
recycling bins and
public
transportation to your gas plant jobs
chasing
the net zero golden cow?
take my
word, no description
can
equal this weightlessness
from above
you, i know exactly what to do —
not all of
you will make it into space, you know
from
origin to colonies
governed
by the few
today the
uniforms cost more
expand for
bellies and pockets
today
they're science officer blue
which
should inspire confidence
what
you've given me is
the power of prophecy
all
good things must come to an end
i am a
comet crashing
i am ten
kinds of sadness
they will
bury me looking up at the sky
Statement:
salvador dali at burning man is an absurdist ekphrastic poem in the style of Andy Verboom's The Appendectomy of Kenpachiro Satsuma. The poem reflects on two works of art that challenge the concept of space and state: Salvador Dali's The Temptation, 1946, and Phillipe Halsman's Dali Atomicus, 1948.
incognito mode responds to Liam Burke's Twitter poem Doomscrolling and to the "Who is the Bad Art Friend" discourse occurring on Twitter. The poem frames both the discourse and the platform as structures that require us to be always visible, and with which we are anxiously compelled to engage, against the escapist nature of constantly consuming 'hot take' micro-content/game culture.
Finally hello astronauts, welcome to earth responds
to the recent Blue Origin space flight which included famed Star Trek actor
William Shatner as a passenger. This poem mingles pop-culture, everyday
reality, economic disparity, and the role of the uber-rich in environmental
disaster. The title is taken from the greeting Jeffrey Bezos gave the returning
passengers upon opening their capsule. The final italicized line, a well-known
aphorism, is also a line spoken by the Star Trek character Q - an omnipotent
being who knows humanity must end. The line is placed here in conversation
against the now diminished space captain. The remainder of the italicized lines
are taken from comments made by Shatner regarding the space flight experience.
natalie hanna (she/her)
is an Ottawa-born, queer, disabled, lawyer of Middle Eastern descent, working
with low-income populations. Her writing focuses on
intersectional feminism, political, ecological, and personal themes. She
is the author of twelve chapbooks, most recently infinite redress (Baseline
Press, 2020), and the collaborative chapbook machine dreams with Liam
Burke (Collusion Books, 2021). Between 2016-2018, she was Administrative
Director of the Sawdust Reading Series and served on the board of Arc Poetry
Magazine. Her poem, "light conversation" received Honourable
Mention for Arc's 2019 Diana Brebner
Prize. Her poetry, commentary, and interviews have been published in Canada and
the U.S. She runs battleaxe press (small press poetry), and lives in Ottawa,
Ontario, on unceded Algonquin Anishinaabe land. She is working on her first,
full length collection of poetry.