Rodney Koeneke
Three poems
The Adorno Corollary
Europe. Memory. Squid Parts. Grace.
Otto of Rose and Lavender
“I would like to write a poem
that equals
The Snack Bar at Auschwitz”
— Gloria Frym
latte falls on Auschwitz
in the staterooms, sermons
are doorjambs
from which the reader learns to open and decode
all the types of symbols
meta-content means
I regulate myself
in the search for sexy subforms
on the Proust list
“There in the willows we hung our hearts”
ecriture for the flâneur:
note to self: build tunnels
under sub-meme:
so many hecatombs
died for the gods
until I learned to improvise
the apricots
Europe. Memory. Squid Parts. Grace.
Whether the squid’s ear resembles the diaphanous soul in ascent
or an aerial shot of Cuba
the macabre happens and happens
Rising like a prayer for my daughter, Svetlana
remarkable for the grace with which she moved through the insipid
stations of her teens
Educing the woman out of the girl
like scampi brought upriver by cruise ships
and served at the noisy quinceañeras of East Los Angeles
Kind of detached from reality as evening flickers
and blogs by American males rhizomically expand in the blogspace
and Zeus hauls memory’s daughter across the ocean
To an island of prosperous rental property owners
busy remembering Cuba
where Internet cafes are like churches
and churches are like monsters
once believed in and dreaded across pre-Christian Europe
now placed wistfully inside the atriums of the forgotten
as equivocal as fog, as curtains, as darkness, as closed doors
Otto of Rose and Lavender
for Michael Magee
Little lavender sachets, great to place in dresser drawers
or in your auto, exist in 5 patterns: rose petal, amaranth, slippery
elm, coconut, assam. We have two models of diffusers (Auto Scent Plug-In
Diffuser — Plug into cigarette lighter — & Liquid Arcana Diffuser of Essence)
We are THE marketing organization in the field of auto lubrication
& we make soothing and fragrant lavender products for your skin or home
sweet, deep, long-lasting
rose bags shipped worldwide in lavender sachets.
Our bags have several uses:
The Auto Club float (decorated entirely by Auto
Club members); carnation smoke that trails the plane; Kaffir lilies
with oblong tongues. One of our products partners
With each of these conditions. Consumers forget, then rise up
from the convenience stores and auto shops, hungry
for fresh blessings from our Liquid Enhancer/ Diffuser.
We give them gum benzoin
then they sleep and forget again. We give out
free suites of security ingredients: Goldenseal Root
& Auto Exhaust, attar of Rose hips & Lavender oil,
deep-tissue massage, auto-immune dysfunction
and these drip pads for their oily constitutions.
Rodney Koeneke is the author of Rouge State (Pavement Saw, 2003) and lives in San Francisco. His new book, Musée Méchanique, will be published by BlazeVox in spring 2006.
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This material is copyright © Rodney Koeneke and Jacket magazine 2006
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