2 June 2002 | Vol. 2, No. 2
Thoughts While Reading Ashbery
Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev's brain weighed 4.8 pounds
on the cutting room table, a Guinness record.
Human penises, erect, expand to five times their size.
Is it that unusual for a grown man
to call his mother "mommy?"
At the mall, in front of perfect strangers?
Granted, the first lesson reading teaches us
is how to be alone, but how much
better we learn that in sleep
with everyone watching at once.
The story of my story is the story of rain,
puddles galore, nothing to hold.
What, therefore, is "here?"
And will the page still shine as never before
when Eddie Fink is laid to rest at last?
Huguet's definition of ennui is similar
to that of Sennancour's written at the beginning
of the nineteenth century: "What we imagine
and what we feel vie for our attention."
I can do that.
About the author:
Chris Semansky's poems, essays, stories, and reviews appear in various literary magazines, journals and newspapers, including theMississippi Review, College English, Southern Poetry Review, Poetry New York, the Oregonian, Postmodern Culture, New Orleans Review, and American Letters & Commentary. His first collection of poetry, Death, But at a Good Price, received the Nicholas Roerich Poetry Prize and was published by Story Line Press. His second collection, Blindsided, was published by 26 Books. His chapbook, André Breton Works the Crisis Prevention Hotline, appears online in Mudlark. He can be reached by email at cks18@attbi.com.
For further reading:
See the complete list of work by Chris Semansky at 42opus. Browse the contents of 42opus Vol. 2, No. 2, where "Thoughts While Reading Ashbery" ran on June 2, 2002. List other work with these same labels: poetry.
