As I listened to Dmitri, I found myself writing down his words/lines, but only the ones I took as sexual content or a sexual response. Here’s the poem that it created:
Nude female bodies
no two shorn horns touched
the rim felt hollow
taking his time of various texture
fill every nook and craning
hiding in its dark room
finger wander against its moist surface
hard on the outside soft/meaty on inside
perhaps it was an optical illusion
felt raw and vulnerable
resisted his touch
blood
he tasted rust
felt something holding his gaze
no disgust, until today
he had felt something
reaching for a real life he could touch
occupy all its space
the look she gave him
what does it mean?
Dismissals.
Positive reinforcement
he bounced
again and again
training himself to be a master
habits formed in this way
providing sense of purpose
one step better
screwed away the night
no wonder
he knew
lit the string on fire
and drove them home
I did something similar for Roy, but instead wrote down the first words/lines I heard after I was done writing the previous lines.
Come upon it
trots ahead
to future canyons
across the high mesa
stagger of the cloud border
it was said
mystery of the aggregate*
I felt scratchy
one after another
with a long standard siiii
remain tilted
ripples of breath slowly diminished
Her face emerging from the wreckage’s.
That woo who shit
we wave, nod
standing on my own fake
ouch.
Crumples into the pavement
being a criminal is hard work
death is abstract
your face stuffed with liar’s papers
shit never ends
marinated all night long.
I chose to do my response this way because I felt like I was interacting with readers as they were reading in the auditorium. It gets pretty tough to focus during BathHouse readings, or any event that is mandatory for a student to attend because the majority of them don’t want to be there and it shows. Students were constantly getting up, coming in late, leaving early, talking and blatantly being disrespectful. I understand if someone has to go to the bathroom, is running late, or has to leave early, but I can tell the difference the person that is the above versus the GROUPS coming and going and being disrespectful.
I felt the second day was the hardest to be able to focus on the readers because they were much less engaging with audience, which caused more people to get up and leave or talk. Aside from that, I think the point they were trying to drive was about community and being comprehensible- “Language is a zombie”- Roy