Excerpts from ‘Extant Fragments’ by steve dalachinsky

Dalachinsky Steve welcome to new york

the secret of life – “the local is universal. upon that all art is built” – w.c.w.

the secret of life has been revealed:              DON’T BE YOURSELF

i told the woman who offered me a seat – it’s a standing rule – i don’t accept seats from women unless i’m really really tired – i will tell you all you need to know – listen – total silence – then one woman in the row opposite starts to cough  violently – in front of me interiority – the notion of progress – images rather than movement – before the (pr)event of where the action would never take place – vertically or horizontally > as with irradiated stars > redoes the body as old now & contradicting its own attachments (it’s self) that kill you while keeping you alive > immune to the ravages > the savages who can’t sleep anymore / scarcely note the flippant intruders / i don’t believe in conspiracies unless they’ve been proven / free men once slaves / once free men then free (slaves) again / coexistence bagel shop > watch face meat eat rule cucumbers > the luxury of suffering & suffering of luxury but rather than simply listing it’s about stringing the words together how they are strung into > grated into the piece  to form “sentences” > therefore the shopping list becomes (in one) an organic entity rather than a stiff reminder > age – many people probably know or guess my age > i really don’t know how to be a blind person /tho i certainly can be an incumbrance / a near dead re-animated wall (meta) > scattershot punchy / pared down  / simple but not simple / infra-structure yet sophisticated > it’s as if one never prepares oneself for distractions > what makes this work is the mix / the openness / @ the pool today or near my covers or anything in my vision: he’s a poet. she’s a poet. those are raindrops >
one fast move & i’m gone.

2016 put together from many different fragments

auto-dictation 2  (announcer on wkcr beginning of Bach-fest 12/23/16  24044 am)

they really came out this year musician for these French suites though is Richard agar your hiney the French suites according to agar are was well known that there’re other key pieces of berries and some people view them as being quite a bit less friend and dramatic other keyboard pieces an issue that I think we’ll see during all of box in the way in which she deftly deserves to be featured in our first couple hours of Boston secured to be TCR gathered here today and obviously and additionally Terry know programming this evening from nine from the UK was also obviously piano keyboard player Dr. So please enjoy please keep listening always

Unhinged @ Stone(d)henge (9/27/15 – 6B/C Garden – for Kosuké

i can see through the clouds forming by the small pond. there is a confluence influenced apparently by a fluidity of music. the music accompanies the greenery. the child beats out a code that is neither rhythmic nor arrhythmic but is definitely his own. the garden feels moist. seems dark and drenched with past rains though there has been no rain in decades. the ivy creeps above the roof of an adjoining building. there is movement everywhere regardless of whether we experience it or not. it is done parading itself before us. this being we inhabit. it no longer relies on our help to magnify, the we, like the ant crawling on and befuddle it. the child understands the subtleties of the music and therefore his own instincts. what they rest upon are the foundations of a world. what comes down upon us are the foundations of the clouds. we are gone within the greenery. lost as they are found within the music. it is the periodic table we’re mimicking / can only lead to growth. quick thinking is definitely a sign of growth. the season is finally changing. this can all only lead to more growth

joggled – david amram @ the cornelia st café 10/7/13

& it was as if begun again the day’s radiant song joggled jingleness above the somewhere where safe in heaven sat the son of every son sang the praises of infinitality  – we walked the perch from here to everywhere where everyone believed in the belief that impacted an ever-shrinking belief system *’d with the idea the will could carry one further than despair – carrying angel could even tho everything is all predetermined & predestined  – we celebrate the arrival of this, the departure of that – the newly mown hay & first seedling planted – we play it different & better again & back then & always new each time   we do it   we do it   do it  & it was as if begun again the radiant song day each day first of days in this series of alternating tunes that bring to mind the One thing one should always have in mind to be where we are now to do it now to seek & find to revel in & behold the jangled jangleness as one would sing one’s breath above the somewhere safe above the sun somewhere where the son himself is safe.

they’re like old people i’d rather not see
but maybe to many that’s what she and i are

Poet/collagist steve dalachinsky was born in Brooklyn (1946) after the last big war and has managed to survive lots of little wars. His book The Final Nite (Ugly Duckling Presse) won the 2007 PEN Oakland National Book Award. His latest CDs are The Fallout of Dreams with Dave Liebman and Richie Beirach (Roguart, 2014) and ec(H)o-system with the French art-rock group, the Snobs (Bambalam, 2015). He has received both the Kafka and Acker Awards and is a 2014 recipient of a Chevalier de l’ Ordre des Arts et Lettres. His books include Fools Gold (New Feral Press, 2014); A Superintendent’s Eyes (Unbearable/Autonomedia, revised and expanded 2013/14); Flying Home, a collaboration with German visual artist Sig Bang Schmidt (Paris Lit Up Press, 2015); The Invisible Ray (Overpass Press, 2016) with artwork by Shalom Neuman; Frozen Heatwave, a collaboration with Yuko Otomo (Luna Bisonte Prods, 2017); and Black Magic (New Feral Press, 2017). His column “outtakes” appears regularly in The Brooklyn Rail. His most recent books are the IBPA award–winning Where Night and Day Become One: The French Poems (Great Weather for Media, 2018) and The Chicken Whisper (Positive Magnets Press, 2018) and the book/CD pretty in the morning (Bisou Records, 2019).


Image: “welcome to new york” by steve dalachinsky

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