Joyelle McSweeney Surreal-Absurd Sampler

As long as I can remember, I have wanted to make a WAR ON HEAVEN, and take back the things that were taken from me.

SURREALISM and ABSURDISM well equip us for a WAR ON HEAVEN.

The tools we need for a reversal of fortunes are right in front of us, easily to hand. We must simply take up the weapons that harm us and REVERSE them. Thus the Surrealist/absurdist logics of reversal, especially of scale, but also of such elements as up and down, big and little, strong and weak, cause and effect-- may-- MUST-- be reversed in the artwork, releasing a scouring bolt that renders the work of art an ENGINE AGAINST THE ALMIGHTY.

I have studied artistic and historical examples of both siegecraft and the lapses of the mighty, from the celestial insurgencies of Jack Smith and Derek Jarman to that abominable food-court-kakistocracy, the US Green Zone in Baghdad -- a knock-off Olympus from which were hatched such vapid yet lethal chicaneries as to make the Zeus-klatsch blush. 

In fighting my  WAR, I have taken up various strategies and armaments: a song contest in an electrified shower stall aimed at sending a shockwave through God's HEAVEN and singing His TOES where they rested in his REFLECTING POOL; an assault on HADES via a HOT TOPIC HERMES through the aperture  of a flooded storm drain; and even an attempt to sail off the edge of the MUNDANE WORLD and into ARCADIA on a derangéd Ship of Theseus, continually assembled and reassembled by bored teens from defunct electronic devices. 

So far I have not yet achieved my purpose, but celestial GROUND has been GAINED and I hold faith that my VISION-- The VISION of the Daughters of New Ganglion-- will lead me at last to my end.

- Joyelle McSweeney

from

THE VISION

of the daughters of New Ganglion

FIRST CETACEANS

This whale maw pinned up in the maw  of the church

pinioned with penants n/ fitted with a flange

whittled wired whistles and surfeited soft landings

half corpse half puppet and half offering

for nerves all turn to look at something 

with envy and with 

more envy more

durable than lust- hospital grade

reticulated stent, plastickated genes, riveted 

serge du nimes reinforced jeans for miners knees-- I want

 to wear them and cry 

beside the mall where I got dumped

beside the mine-- allele allele-- all 

studded with blind

darts --  on primitive memory 

cards (two memories) whereby the organist fights

for some control over his voice  and vice 

volta-- blind

item-- how 

they got that dog up into space up on 

that coffin--  comet, gnats above the mall--

 to cock his head like a hand

cocked for a cocktail glass

to receive, with utter faith,

the cool alchohols of some urbane party

thin grained

in space-- another space 

than this one, or a cove 

to catch the sound as it reverses from the shore

like a trireme whipped along by Greeks

a weed whipping, broadcasting seeds

or a seed bank reposing

in a whipping sea --who put it there

or any of us, you 

shoulda been 

shoved down a mine 

at birth set out to sea

in one of those cute caskets they made

for sewy machines 

called singer, singer, 

the monitor blinks its chorale 

too late

too late

for the dog to heed

the dog that flips needle

rides its eye into the sky

LITTLE HOUSE IN THE SEED VAULT 

Our final star declined to live 

behind the plastic curtain

beneath the gaze of twin

pediatric surgeons

one named for a ruined city and one 

a deathless teen--

but we, it seems, survived 

our birth to watch the skies

degrade above New Ganglion

passing for Minnesota 

thro'  that burning lens

the dubious settlers 

crept like ants 

plasmodia gathered 

in the sun named for an eye

so all that it iooked upon

could only live and yet decline

fumes from their permanent waves

cut thick crowns above the pews 

kerosene-packed butter churns

chirped a bible verse 

prompting the mom to lop off her paw

and the sister go blind--

as was foretold by the sick sun in the eye--

so that we could believe then 

as we believe now 

that the pregnant pink dolphin

last of his kind

defies his radio collar

to swim up the flooded channel

and rock against the vault

and beat his brains thereby

and undo the locks with his brains

and swing wide the gate

let the seas sluice in like a gown behind him

to mate with the seeds in their beds--

here discrete froth 

of brain broth fogs the lens--

as it froths the lens of thought--

and who knows what's growing there

the rotting seeds the tangled hair

but we know what it's like to live

behind the end behind the end

NOBODY! GOD! NOBODY! YOU

who

occupies all sightlines

multiplies

your guy-line

steals sheep

maketh the sheep to pose sidewise

for your fore-shortened

funeral relief

you and the local sheep

o'er which the cyclopean sky

must needs attend 

against her will

with her one sick eye

and the other rolled away when she

opened up the cave wall and

birthed sheep

now she balls her fist and grinds her sick socket

now with the clock and

now against it

at end of day 

red with rage she

bends low

to dunk her orbit in the sea

pound waves and

slip hot grains 

that stain, engender

pestilential

girl-nymphs in the sea--

 but what if 

the sea itself is a ship

what if you're riding it

riding it now

all in her cloister and all in her oyster

what if you're like her home-goer home-owner 

a notorious un-notorized own-goal  sheep fucker so

what 

if you like her

(hate home)

(the sea)

can't go 

can't stay

away  can't leave

WAR VARIATIONS (IMMEMORIAL DAY)

Back in the dooryard mooning with the lilacs--

--It's never moon here--

strike moon--

gathering munitions for our War on Heaven

I begin to think it is the reverse of elegy--

and the reverse of alchemy

some plasmodium

eating it down to sewage

selling it off for parts

anger lust pride avarice

anthracene chrysene pyrene naphthalene

collect above the burn pit

at noon beside the crusher lot

rain light

and all the smashed chassis like hoplites lift their shields

as if to fight off the sky

insane & anyhow sublime

anyhow landlocked & idling at the light

laced into our cossets for the trip to no place

worth going god's 

reedy spite

returns as laws

big fist arrives 

like a teen first for nothing

exhausts heaven, ladders up

to storm the bower, take it back

while lilacs last

(they do not last)

strike lilacs--

no 

moon, no you

just ok chanteuse jacking

out hanging 

off blue

balconies

your unholy

hazey glaze shrouds 

an unimaginable 

malibu

trimmed in sfumato 

marabou

as vanity trims the mirror

's pelt

improving the view you

stick your head through you

steady on the AC unit

climb out the broken window to the roof

while the AC makes

the lowest sound known to English

the most bovine mew

your brainstem at birth

already answered cuckoo 

i hear the orcas at last o

-verthrowing the ships 

throwing out 

their own nets 

a girl group you can join

unionize or harmonize

falsetto falsify

how you fled

on the hard disk that bled

the laser's coffers

spun out

on the copse

a belt of ammunition

thrown up into the sky

Carthaginized

Carthagogenic

margarine of carthagine cartridge

in the magazine

scurfy marine surfeiting

the stock and slide

peekaboo behind

the jury found

in favor of beef

the jury found

the lilacs

wearing out their weather

</lilacs>

wearing out their own wreathes

on the wrestling mat

contracting impetigo

and taking a pounding

purple and royal

a pound of lilac to grow a pound of meat

the Pb in groin water could make you go blind a pod

of orcas

goes to ground and

trains on meat for weeks a reef

of lilacs 

rucked up into the air

its hide-n-hair

lithe as an electrolyte

in the brain of an anole

tilts in the cave like a fuse

nervy to

consummate

shortly to

immolate

till a consolating

tidelet

of fat shall rise 

to lap

the very step

of your tomb

Joyelle McSweeney's tenth book, Death Styles, is forthcoming from Nightboat in Spring of 2024.