BENJAMIN HENRY ==================================================== I am pleased to bring to you the second virtual edition of inter\face. As I stated in inter\face 3, "inter\face is an offering." Take this as a gift and enjoy. Comments are appreciated. email to BH4781@rachel.albany.edu. ==================================================== inter\face 4 March/April 1993 she was upstairs crying: finch, leaf, build. God. are bristles of our sour heart. her hair like it always did. tired old brown books. rush of air given a nickname....> well-used binoculars. he fell into the trough: to melt her face against the wall "bed of lists". I say that. can't comfort me. she gets the urge to be vulgar - meshes - divination rinsing smoke in the childish field. fingers understand hands borne from the trees I love this thing whispering between us believing it has body. from Elizabeth Robinson's Bed of Lists & John Malboeuf's Whispering Loud =================================================================== Part Two of "Inter\face Is:" interface is to charm burden from talisman our mother is the ship we're in good to record the passage imperfect & immanent -ky Now I dream in text, floating through tabs on a white rectangle. Inter\face is physical; I can touch it. -bh sometimes i forget what interface is. then there it is a bookmark tucked in days. to know where we stand. our pages a-flutter. -nd ============================================================= cover collage by: Benjamin Henry ============================================================= contributors: Emily R. Novak Lisa Schapiro Marc Guillaume Wilma Kahn Katie Yates Nancy Dunlop Benjamin Henry Kurt Lohr Join Malboeuf Michael Basinski ====================================================== Emily R. Novak Illinois Retrograde Dead grass/candles/a fire in the woods. Two mouths open and staring in at the flames in the freezing cold, warming themselves as the snow starts up. And no one realizing I woke up to the rocking backward. No one believes you when you say the will has been separated, when there are pieces of things and nothing whole. A surface disguising a bruise (So the preface reads, two roads next to each other on a stage. The speaker moves above one for each particular monologue. One's facing the mountains, one's facing flatlands, fields of corn up to your knees. You could say they mean exactly opposite things. The flatland a return to innocence, the mountains a desperate escape to overcome it. But it's the same thing) Back and forth it's the same thing. An ocean of stars. Cement roads breaking down, running for the woods. Two bodies in a wood house in the mountains and she can do nothing but record details. The smell of wood burning and the sound of its collapse. The lamps made out of tin cans. The lake freezing. ballooning outward/ like a body sore from reclaiming ============================================================ Katie Yates 2.10 having not seceded successfully into "where are you. I have been... etc." roses as usual my/sincerest effort to see ^ not in the/a Blakean sense so much as you might have imagined my hand in it -you know- revocable Woman {rich by night & day} - the rich plays on sensibility on which we rest in assured Avenue steps. So much the light tender play [A] And you in equality that is light's grateful inequality - smell old humor happiness both half stalked Poeima Nouthelikon. Cythrigen (shepard mother) "Love forever" my nest is arable" tabernacle globe command air and fortune. The emblem of saturn of waiting still for the return: Glauki, Talei, Kumodike, Nesalie, Speiro, Thoe, Halie, Kumothoe, Actaie, Limnoricia, Melite, Iairo, Amphitoe, Aguai, Poto and Proto, Pheirosa, Dunamene, Doris Panope, Galetia, Nemertes, Apseudes, Kallianaissa, Klumini, Ianeira, Ianassa, Maira, Oreithya, Amatheia of the deepest bath "but we ran ahead of it all" - you might be the other girl of lime by the intimacy of eyes of restiveness of heart to breathe the fire of these cares blow your smile at me in aspect. I sent thee a poem late and always slow "will not hurry a path" in windfall in honey rush of snow (Voice Off). Any other > Transmute. The old fields permit us this stay. Say how you knew that grammar. initial dove. initial blue. initial light arrogance. not the foreplay of an hectic insistence. cells above earth until metal moon carve bone say cut cherry wood obtrude yellow gloss for now: silence is useless: a hull: a fruit: see: love: wet root from shadow limned face of cold. infinite water. the chiasma of blossom. addressed between grates boarded against the darkening darkening (or Winter rose) to fetch: she hid in the drunken sand row. born stinging of the crane fire just scarcely midnight blue dispersal * sun: a world to climb in nectar's clock-wise enumbrance copper round our rubric intrusions: After a night of thinking ebb of the whole arm white gold autumn flashing infinitely burgeoning would not further divide the 80 flowers. --------------------------------------------------------- The Return of Painting from having no money from trying to sleep w/him what she tried to but (an orange, an egg, a cabbage) a misery of sequencing (cropping} finding) out horizontal & vertical breaking up the Fiction: the same as her, her extreme surface & the orange in-the-darkness runs // ( the complete child hood waking) is astonished ~ quietly his long arm quietly, very happy, very water, (an ape is always drinking) congregate near to me. be helpful. on the outset. walking, curled up on the metal deck then sleeping on the floor, a baby in the dark chewing to see into maybe happens with the towns all around us caring about you so it could be the - only hanging low call (if) a prayer just-the-sky just-the-desert just go out in the sky just going out in the sky just this very gentle manner above: the streetlight blue sky insand: door opened --------------------------------------------------- 2/14 "And is the inside of this" L.S. "The Night" come lightning thru the lattice (the inside of this) recording? Come lightly to beg cannot drop her body into her mind & (that night) young sole hostility come in fall force the body to bruise Ohio body bodily going down is constellation/consolation it is empty: a tiny matchbox holed up in her apartment or not floating - (married) the dead body outside her having nothing to hide (cardboard) weeping swimming among (others) car goes in the sun over sawdust kissed being ill - the terminal acutely ravine with rain because her eyes (charity) Jump. Cling. To Return. so clear. so beautiful. loving beforehand openly - a part & she wanted to convince -him- Red Sea the magnolia tree crush of trees assuming they would part brushing hot just go out in the sky just going out in the sky just this very/gentle manner She gets out. Expresses. Her body is the car. Between the. Just keep his eyes open. from the heat of weeping (in him) utterly despondent. [matching aprons] buds on the trees. Slate cored. The same as sand. Not spoken between them. Not coming Her on. Gentle kneeling. As Galileo opening the bud. Layers to avoid it. Crumbling metal. Glowing poppies. Withdrawn from her. The fan turning. My body. Withdrawn from her. A long time to escape. Glowing poppies We see this. Not using the mind But-only one Door opened "Orion" =================================================== Lisa Schapiro Lucy in the Sky Doesn't Live Here Anymore: The Sequel You sit belly on your lap facing your computer lawyer-shirt strewn over the back of the old couch. You smell of cigarettes and car fresheners as you stare and stare straight into the screen, taking a second out of every few to smoke another cigarette out in the garage or make a comment about the television show filling the family room. You will be sitting there until maybe eleven or twelve at night then get into bed reluctantly, with a new day of litigation or client meetings ahead. How did magic tricks and teaching me to use the wok drawing me pictures to show me the principle of time travel become this? How did you lose your childhood altogether? Mom says: back when daddy had a personality... but you do still, you must. The man in the undershirt once wrote poetry i know, i have a copy of the booklet it wasn't great poetry, but it rang of your inner depth your mental strength that I have always admired. You once had a brother who I never got to meet he was crushed by a truck when he was sixteen years old and you have never mentioned him to me. You used to light up smiling young and full of dreams all the time. Despite your younger brother who I think you purely forgot. How much of your brightness did you bury with your baby brother? Or were you happy -- Grandma always liked him better. How much of your brightness remains? Now you pour your brightness into the computer you let it sing to you in the garage with your cigarettes but you don't put my finger in the make believe guillotine anymore or show me how you can make a little gold butterfly locket appear out of thin air. You put that locket around my neck and I told everybody that daddy did magic at the living room table just for his little girl. That was when you were my infallible daddy that was when i didn't wonder about your past your inner feelings that was when you came before any other man in my life. Somewhere that changed. Now Every once in a while you embrace me or tell me a joke or play ghost with me and I see daddy again. Why can't I be your little girl anymore? Why doesn't you magical computer astound me as did your magical tricks? ======================================= John Malboeuf Kurt Lohr Nancy Dunlop Subj: easy listening n- sorry that you disappeared friday, but you were lucky you missed the fight. thank you for the tape. and happy birthday. kurt and i would like to take you out for beer when chance comes. who is on that tape? i do like that one song that you played earlier best... for the record... caverns echoing externalities am i digging now or sweeping up nether stairwells she is spinning thru the hole in my clouds nos lavamos we wash ourselves but from where we started in the crinkled ocean waves in the corral reef under the sweet bed light winding carving my way thru your mountain valleys searching for forbidden city between sanctuaries hand over hand except for regulars there is no balance or contradiction which finds itself ringing in tabernacle urgency we grow to carrier pigeons saving face a bridge in nowhere for people i am to take them back to nowhere but i care about nowhere where is nowhere i could be real negative here or technical the situation would agree this too can settle to small pockets of water at the tops of highest mountains bridge bridge repair my bridge Donde esta? stacked natural bridges and mountains only the most delicate flora survive but we can get back to this sometimes the escarpment opens to wider waters the causeway between risk and wrong has collapsed contrary action adequate impulsive organism a bridge this tiny animal does swell beyond the petri dish understanding what fire is or smoke or trees in spring city limits sky line permits brief glimpse of what is to come. city limits to repeat to WE HAVE TO STAND UNDER THE ROOF la mesa de noche el lavaplatos the arc is the support situations don't explain themselves if there were just a little more $$ or a bridge from here to there (YOU) hair pin turns through jaded issues <<<<<>>>>> see: our sky filled aeroplanes dragging words thru holes in young clouds. left lane closed must rely on the right side to think... it's not easy being me finding it like coins in grass webs continue poking up over division deadbeat lost no i am found Donde esta? all its angles water running over sections under place abetted factions we are close now parked and buffeted by wind <<<<<>>>> ======================================= Wilma Kahn julie glass cat give me a cat with its head in a can give me a glass ashtray half sunk in artificial jungle at joy fong's give me a julie head wrapped in a doll's cap or bandage a cat head stuck in an orange juice can drags its butt along oakland drive i pull at the can but the cat bats with front claws glass ashtray what is your secret why are you sunk crystal ship in an artificial forest you oddity you queen you idol you idyll red hat/white cap covers your head you are abrasive and fragile as red coral a bandage a tuft of hair you point to a hollow a vein here they give chemo orange cat hesitating on the edge to walk in the road to end mike tears off the can and i think i see a sick eye the cat bounds away a man comes out to watch the ashtray i'm not taking it out i say not me says mike let it stay a transparent wreck in a dry green sea i try to pull off the orange juice can to what horror of cylindrical head or bare brain i saw a sick eye the cat bounded away julie jewel you odd egg tufted with stuff hair growing back a new color old hair out new hair in odd egg brown/white odd egg orange cat orange juice can faced like a gas mask turning here turning there what can you see hear smell glass ashtray jaunty smile light glints glass ashtray planter/divider glass ashtray I don't want to see and julie how could i tear off the red hat fling the bandage from patchy head2/13 the can must come off how can a cat breathe have a head shaped like a can not know even without seeing that cars can kill glass ashtray what do you hold i want to know no i don't it is indelicate to want to know i want to know i want glass ashtray come to me i summon you to rise from the wreck to julie jewel to uncover the egg to give it air to smell and hear and taste to cat to cat freed of can to run to bound a rabbit cat to bound across a black man's yard glass ashtray what is your miracle what is your julie jewel glass ashtray a cat with head shoved in a can glass ashtray julie jewel unravel your bandage let your tricolor egg breathe ======================================= Benjamin Henry Window 1. I look out from a view not including myself except one shoulder, two hands, a lap - I feel hair -- imagine a reflection, faintly: Apples creating caterpillar webs, shreds, spillage semen strewed about the room, I declare necessary -something- specific presentation, ode(or) intimate, a frost would/could no closer touch nimbly, nimbly follow close imagine fallow fodder, simplicity -- wave form(at) [and] boca-mouth-art suspension tongue-checked (So I am) whipped, snap, attack, flow, angry me to(o) lean close [if ever] I knew : the distance! Shimmering like lightning, striking notes of discord unsounded, traced in [white] light, outlined by a deep, blue sky. II. I know this reflection must not end, I allow her purification smoke to cleanse. C. frozen lattice clings to smooth surface, tumbling, trembling, watching the sky for power surges, melting heat- the pot handle, boiling steam, (visible.) ------------------------------------------------------------ Tomorrow. Grant it, darn it, grant it, wait for the apocalypse, forgotten, those outdoor elements fixed, the cement holds their path-rail, trodden, crowded, I look for an exit sign, glowing, glowering redAngryMad above me, over the doorway... I do not notice the people dash by, they are running from crumbling ruins, toward the forest, taking the highway, (umber midden, streamy, teary-eyed, lash beaten, frogged, stampede!;) -call out for that echo- -wait for its return- ======================================= Marc Guillaume Lottery Luck Sucking my batteries that were charged by photovoltaics. I try not to think this when I think, but it's true. I pat my pocket. Mini-array still there. I've got a full charge but I 'm still nervous. This could be a lollg story. It started when I won the lottery, don't you know. Everything starts with money, I'm not stupid. It was a special lottery lump sum and all. Suddenly in my lap, a couple of million. I never bothered to count. I'd always wanted to be one with everything. I'm a Zen going way back. Read the Tao of Pooh, don't you know. Owl is my hero. Smart guy. So I hired this scientist. He said he was well qualified. Something about neuro-physics, neuro-networks, neuro-stanford doctorate. Meant nothing to me. I just called him doc. He didn't mind. He only wanted money. I guess that's the problem. He said he could have given me a better battery if he had more money. Could've made it possible to trigger Implant (I call it my higher self) with my mind (what ever that is) instead of something he called a physically stimulated activation switch. "You mean, like a light switch so I can turn on the light in my head?" I thought it was funny. He said he could have put a self-diagnostic in; keep me healthy and make me live longer, he said. Too bad I didn't have any more money. He even said he could give me perfect memory. You guessed it, more money. So I win a lottery, (don't remember entering) and all I have left is a bit of silicon in my body and some batteries that will only accept charge for another 2 years. I wonder what part of me has all the stuff? I used to know. Sure do need that memory enhancer. Need money. What, do I put a want-ad on some network? (or even the paper!) Youth with able body and very able, computer enhanced mind needs work. Who's hire me? McDonalds, but they'll hire anyone, any time, always. Must be some kind of universal truth. ======================================= Michael Basinski Vase From a Pillow Book The working fluid must be contained in these erotic vessels of an adequate size and shape for the physics in hand and made of cormorants and humming-birds in human form, one of them preparing a liquid in a little receptacle over a bonfire and stirring it with some implement, while a cormorant lifts a vessel in an arbor of a man and woman making love, but it has characteristics that we do not find in other cultures, in the presence of flames, this radiation will mainly be extremely soft cloud tracks. =================================================================== ------------------------------------------------------------------- inter\face is published by HUB Press down in the basement of the Humanities building at SUNY Albany. We use Mircosoft Word for MacIntosh on a Mac IIci and Microsoft Word for Windows 2.0 to convcert to ASCII to upload to the network. Anyone interested in contributing or helping please e-mail to BH4781@rachel.albany.edu. --------------------------------------------------------------------