New Poetry with Audio!

Donald Revell
Stephen Burt
Paul Hoover
Jonah Winter
Cathy Wagner
Reginald Shepherd
Nin Andrews
Sophia Kartsonis
Sandra Miller
Joshua Harmon
Devin Johnston
Chuck Zerby
Sara Henning
Ognjen Smiljanic
Lance Phillips
Peter Drake
Kathleen Byrne
Ernest Hilbert
Garth Greenwell
Marc McKee

Criticism

Brian Henry on Kinsella
Gabriel Welsch on Northrop
Gabriel Welsch on Smith
Cecily Iddings on Ruefle
Christopher McDermott on Wenderoth

Ernest Hilbert's poetry and criticism have appeared in The Boston Review, Poetry Daily, Pleiades, The American Scholar and Fence. He organized and hosted an evening of new American writing, titled “The Future Knows Everything,” at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York in early 2003, and is editor of the journal NC.

Etiolational

˛  

bursting halfway up the ulna read the autopsy report

            from the Detroit Coroner’s Office
he swallowed again and again, clutching sparks in the damp grey skyway

despite differences in climate

points of personal privilege remain the same        

never really made dormant by changing environments

vanilla-scented exhaust causing estrogen levels to drop

who authorized those machines?

and why is there no chance of escape?

                        screams moisten the corridor from end to end

                        remembering that the fundamental principles of parliamentary law

            do not include spitting or fucking

or illicit photographs of earthquake mansions on Pacific Heights

                                    until the future becomes a recommended city of death

            and now even that is gone

hissing steam melting fire escapes

hosing out a charred office building

these are no longer questions of personal privilege

the fourth gasp and then comes the abortion                                                       

slumped in her chair

                                    with a box of transparent surplices

wrists crossed and tied behind the back

you can’t throw the whole system over the edge

so you wind up drunk

            throwing popcorn in a porno theater in New Orleans

            returned from Asia with first thoughts of wealth years before

collapsed on the tenth floor of a mansion adjacent to the airport

dry heaving on cold concrete

hubris pretty well drawn away

still knowing millions of diamonds in the sunset

˛  

it was clear that they were all entirely radiated by the end

                        flown to the nearest suburb

                        burned and deteriorating rapidly

                        with each new effort

the ambassador swallowed all of our pills without having slept or even resigned

                        a team of specialists worked every night for weeks

they needed a surgeon but funding was narrowed drastically

                        until they were left with only silicon and summer blockbusters

            to admit of privilege requires immediate action

            guide the team down into an opening in the jungle canopy

            without consent yet nonetheless triumphant

                        another movie star wakes the president for drinks

                        a weekend’s talks culminating in no solution but annexation

serfs and local governors dining at the same Ottoman tables

offering their cocks to teenage boys for the first two centuries

one of many ways to continue their Islamic rule and vast outbreeding

they memorized all they could about the arsenal and their own terminal conditions

                        until someone decided to deliver

                        a five-pound report to the cabinet

            no solid option left but to shut off the engine and leave us at a dead hover

            the steering committee turned up in the swamp

            remembering how the FM radio crackled in the Chicago dusk ten years before

            answering questions without answering them

            inexhaustible and inhumane

is this a nonsensical question or the embalming of Christ?

who has settled and converted here on the border of this insoluble state?

has the senator from Texas bullied his Internet tax in the pro-business hinterland?

˛  

            we wonder if genocide could ever be fully achieved

ranked on a continuum of bad news

groups of sunburned patients out here for the weather

nodding and listening to the doctors as agents record their conversations

                        Americans are thoroughly familiar with the conditions

                        of mobilization, public debate, obscenity

                        whosoever seeks nomination must accept the negligence that history presents

if we must be Machiavellian then we must admit that most meaning falls away

and a trained pig can be used to illustrate the basics of LD-50

and its true uses in the case of a human emergency

                                    most of us won’t last another ten minutes without whole blood

not even a glimpse of the crater or a word over the intercom

                                    convinced that no devotion to authority could

overturn voices raised in complaint

shielding the necropolis from butterfly rays and searing diagrams

trapped in the compound with a handful of followers

waiting for the news to end

˛  

this is a terrible task

having to tell the child that his father is dead again

                        what do we really mean when we scribble democracy on memos

                        and pay in advance for an extraordinary spectacle?

unable to distinguish one product from another we

                        smell the strong odor of bleach and envisage ruined highways

                        and ponder the actual presence and use of names in adoption papers

the attorney cleared his throat and spoke

                        ‘as these two encounters have shown

                         we are more vulnerable to social pathologies

                         and ghettos than we had at first believed’

together seeking a politics that transcends infringement suits

a hundred years after the shutdown on Capitol Hill still well regarded by the emperor

                        questioning all who walk past

            what worm attends our policy?

            what is the real goal of this graveyard?

            do you recognize what is complex and perfect for our growth?

            what reserves of communication enter a process that turns

            attention inward while raising glasses to the altar et cetera et cetera?

lick the disc clean in the Washington bureau office

provoking and balancing limits and descriptions as the actuarial deficit plummets

            hmmm . . . this is an original work of expression but more autonomous

            than a . . . a chrysalis in humidity

too polarized to compromise fund-raising with religion

                        the council made assumptions and adjourned to a new solar system

the eminent psychologist from Harvard insisted that he had been misquoted

                        by The New Republic and that he needed another week in detox

                        before he could admit how boring his books really were

he stopped a reporter and overreacted to White House policy

as he finished the martini and waited

            for his erection to go down

intimating a decrease in citizen involvement

                                                he hit the accelerator

                                                gripping the child’s hand

                                                and dreaming of clean new structures in the wilderness

filled to capacity with pitchmen, carnies, CEOs, shareholders

suffering a gambling fall in the transformed jurisdiction

the worst storm of its kind in seventy years

                                                                                    snared in a bureaucracy of the mind

                                                            intractable, resistance built into its very nature

he was caught chain smoking and masturbating frantically

            on the bathroom mirror at the convention center

facing the ideological impasse as 3D models of unirrigated hellscapes

finally kicked the influence out of him

                        feeding the system of administration

                        with IV drips, small talk, and prayer breakfasts

                        in the frail Sarajevo snowfall dawn

counterproposal or contingency increasing flexibility rather than inhibiting it

the two exchanged papers in the UN lavatory

as the TV cameras clicked on in the skeleton showers

leaving the board members irritated and indifferent

to money-focused mob sciences of government

amassing a collection of palaces and luxurious gaming operations,

he still occasionally ran into an old antagonist

who failed to grasp the egg-shell decor of the slaughter space

core techniques, theme music, iconic imagery

yes, yes, they are, were, our children

˛  

fatigued and trembling at fissures in the blue glow

            to safely face the cultural values of materialism and promiscuity

            they’re together in heaven effecting the silence we could never bear to show

            so high he staggered from his chair in the Grand Hotel

            later found hanged in his underwear with the heater blowing strips of plastic up

to be fair it is a crisis and we are all involved

                        a dissolution of learning and concern and literary prizes given

                        out and no one really seems to be thinking about what’s being done

he popped the television with a hat pin and danced

            on the balcony until he wound up in cyberspace

            hocking new British conceptual art

this speaks of the projectile and the prophylactic in all matters

imagination and the will in conflict

a tempestuous century from the beginning

a fractious group of willful communities backed by failing empires

            MDs report that the child frequently wakes

                        stuttering excitedly of sunny days and asking for the smallest gifts

                        in Dachau no less

resuscitating his mother

he would not be sexually adventurous

until well into his twenties

one correspondent dubbed his own digital readouts

over the press conference tapes

before glimpsing the earth from three weeks ago

he glamorized her strut before hacking her into wet clumps

and pushing her ankle into the food disposal unit until

it jammed and the police arrived hurling accusations of

alien programming and bleed-thoughts that they

later discovered were perfect for mass marketing

                        look closely at the tiles on the wall and begin counting in the fluorescence

                        we must have faith in the auctioneer or we will never secure his acquittal

imagine yourself in an auditorium gesturing naturally

as a society are we responsible for one another?

                        are we becoming part of an alarming situation?

                        is it hard to remove the Empire State Building from its base?

                        is it Always Coca-Cola?

are we part of the same compensatory mechanism of the state department?

the representative was vehemently calm according

to some reports and had not yet contacted the Secretary of the Navy

instead reading Shakespeare in the debriefing room

explicating soliloquies and even cracking a joke or two

without hesitation

the only decent man in the hall

his favorite method of relaxation

walking on stars to enlist the finer resolutions

˛  

we sped him through the second Roman dawn

wiping the rearview mirror with a white silk handkerchief

                        Sunday drizzle

            learning and relearning signs

            since he knew only German, Sanskrit, Latin, and English

            he drew models of fractures and cinders

glimpsed back through epics

to the landing at the mouth of the Tiber

turn to the lunar television and witness undercurrents

chaos expression

elegant radios pointing toward the moon’s decrepit mist

            as a child I dreamt solely of rocketships

            in the mosquito summer nights of Indiana

details only please, like the $10,000 you received for public appearances

                        now they jail citizens for not aiming nose-cones at the ground

‘sit in a chair about three feet from the pattern and

 stare at the set distribution until the contrary becomes apparent’

            fleeing his failed life

he spat out a mouthful of lenses and flowers on 20 / 20

his bloodstream hidden with viruses

freezing memory to any topic like quartz crystal

                        tight in her smooth slim perhaps undergraduate physique

                        thousands of copies of the first concept of free speech

I’m getting kind of spooky these days

let the scene fade from imagination

let those in the lecture hall decide for themselves

                        now maybe I will have to

                        inseminate the complicated one who tried to leave me

glancing down at the parking lot behind the physics center

all he had to do was release the rail

infinite supply of coal black ovules in a frangible universe

leaving us sexually relaxed but intellectually transparent

so why not get the hell out now

as we approached the base we polished cutting tools

and yawned at the plastic

looked up in surprise as the missile-forested field

turned to exhaust throwing up sucrose and acceleration

                        the simple pleasures of a scholarly life

loneliness and disappointment

how much money? the line went silent

more silence in the remote settlements

                                    we began driving north again

opening her robe she lipped foreign lingua

exposed rising waters

disclosed hatchways in the observatory

mobilizing shadows and beacon stems smoking in the open surge

permission to apply pulse and procedure on the whole joyfully

exhausted from the sun but

firm enough to admit that there are such

things as gravity and peaceful sedition

˛  

a seven year wandering has overtaken me

in this dark quarter of the city we once shared

and you who have traveled with blanched maps of

terra nostra

            to study ruins and diplomacy

            mean nothing to me

            as classics and humanities become ever more peripheral

            you take delight in seeing the same happen

            to mathematics and biology

terrestrial globes raised on a retreating history

the founding of Rome and its destiny

Cassandra, Laocoon, what insults at the hands of the Greeks

˛  

the discipline of cost calculation requires no

            great consideration of Aristotle or Hume

            guiding the commonweal requires

            knowledge primarily of cost calculation

is there no more summer business to be contracted in this overheated auditorium?

then we will adjourn to the back room for brandy and twilight foam

            the rituals elapsed, he crouched on a solitary hill

            and exhorted a god to wake

            you might want to disclose your new invention to an eager public

            you might deliver the corpses of Ithaca to their noble families

whatever has taken control of her fertility is

entirely unknown to both science and religion

she asks all manner of indecorous questions at press conferences

‘have you visited Mahler’s lakefront villa?’

‘have you slept with Sunjata’s bard and warrior?’

‘will you return to seek missing worlds with Einstein’s Russian love letters?’

‘will you wash the hallucinogenic roots and plot to kill the chairman?’

            we are considering no benevolent summer

            program for Titian much less Rauchenberg

pretty much an inadvertent copyright infringement

and who can perform computation

on a torso under a broad white moon?

            contact me so that I might correct the matter in a quadrilinear visitation

            and find the sun alone today with my handsome brother

not necessarily exactly as specified or as such so to speak per se

the pleasures of music and retirement in the colonies this summer

but still there is a pursuit of knowledge, unprofitable and exquisite

            the merchant prince in his Hong Kong tower puffs

            a Macanudo and reads Cymbeline to Mozart’s Requiem

the governor has received a substantial fee for closely

tabulated body searches in the region of our constituency

we will not yield to warlords

nor will we yield to primitive art

or the paradisial frosted mosques of Lou Kahn

he has also been asked about reputable but

as yet incomplete nuclear submarines rolled sideways in starlight and mud

despite rumors of kidnapping

she told him to remain calm, that his daughter would be found

asleep in her sewn amethyst crib

wailing and drooling to a Bach cantata

                        you are among the fortunate and not alone in this tragedy

                        your description however is still: CONFIDENTIAL

                        ‘I had a criticism to make, being a critic by profession

                         I was appropriated from nullity as were we all’

            the horrifying sensation of having no control over your body

            in the last moments, the empire half formed

take the failing king to the Jerusalem room

and let him speak of his crusades

outside the death chamber

the fleets have converged on the harbor

and are impressive this summer day

˛  

we have dispensed with myth and small town

parades for the moment

                        for the sake of you, who were once enamored of cannibalism

                        divorced from interpretation

and the despair of a neoteric Egyptian civilization

            Henry Miller reading Spengler was actually impressed

my faithful old hunting dog curled up in my study

            too old to pursue bitches and deer but satisfied

            with Wagner and his place by the fire

we hope to create mechanical targets and

mathematical proportions and dense correspondences for headquarters

the animators have given us this huge reconstructed brilliance

to be witnessed by all in the burning dust and wedding noises

of the federation

cloudy sentiments of free enterprise

            but something must have set him on this

            extraordinary trajectory

            a political biography of considerable significance

            with remarkable determination

            he resigned and wrote his memoirs

darkness swarmed over the

sacred lake like a shadow of locust thoughts

dissatisfied with tyrannical reign

they overthrew us and began their own

I claim or we claim to determine this

we must go back to the start

of each particular universe and obtain patents for all

11-dimensional super-string particle theory advances

per your complete written construction in the Yellow Pages

                        scale the sheer numbers and ask me

                        what I have done with your legions

                        on the German frontier

they soon outnumbered us and ate our horses

and I wept on the retreat from Moscow in the hideous snowdrifts

and I wept at the battlements of Jerusalem

despairing that she would ever fall

and I wept again and again in Chinese

baths with my resistant concubines

promoting the development firm in Washington

            with a yearly payment we might reconquer

            the protectorate in your absence

the fleet is assembled for the expedition

            but you carelessly let drop the compass in mid-ocean storm

            astro-chemical nakedness in

            warm streams beneath the glacier face

epochs pass and still I express no curiosity in three volumes

an order built into things as they really are

red hourglass predator configuration

            where the saturated upper atmosphere suddenly rushes

            into silence at a magnificent convergence

the fleet helixes into a swelling seaway

gone from our radar screen and constellations too are gone

we hurl ourselves into this night to no avail

with only quadrants and microscopes and lanyards

to keep us from sleeping at the foot

of the hard ivory throne of barbarian ancestors

a Roman celebration disrupted with

intelligence from the frontier

no survivors in the vaporous territory but still

they shower us with sunlight through the wax and amber

of northern pine forests where no maps are

˛  

his throat constricts like twine

a summer life, the islands and dim waves sweeping

fallen space stations in from the gulf

            fragments with a validity all their own

            culminate in nothing less than creation itself

            he endeavors to disentangle them and a

                        cultural heritage founded on a list of suspicious

                        characters: stomach taut with fear on the marble floor

            public spectacle: it is like death here

laughing through the frosted glass at the time of the crucifixion

voices suddenly smaller, more querulous and muttering incoherently

about the semblance of a civilization unmasked

the backplanning board of directors has requested

you be subpoenaed before you understand what

is happening in the heavily perfumed

                        Egyptian pool where humankind descended

                        some element beyond simple senility is at work here

            he had all of his papers at the foundation

            destroyed with a single phone call, untraceable

            everything is suddenly dry

            we are invariably deemed suspect

            do not question his motives

do not question why he must be restrained before

self-immolation makes the trial impossible

we slammed the lid and welded it shut

there is a traumatic awareness of nonexistence

            there is no clandestine circle of elites manipulating

            world markets and mass media

            you are not only an accretion of irrational

            intelligence but are also obscene and absurd

ultimate arbitrary invention of the human intellect