6x6x6 - Two Poems

Two months ago I started a side project aimed at the journal 6x6 which I called 6x6x6. I completely forgot about it. The whole conception of the project is shameful, kitschy, and panders to the basest desires for print publication, which makes it easier for me to not give a fuck at all about it. Here are two of them that I took the time to finish today.

BTW, I didn't think about the sign of the beast thing until just a few minutes ago, but it suits the poems well, I think. ;)

-------------------------------------

Where's Your Daughter?
Sat Aug 29 15:04:33 2009 - Thu Oct 29 14:52:23 2009

"Where's your daughter," her hands
in her center, the ears
are singing, the little
weapon which will drink? "Much
love (historically)
studying the ass, sir."

The hormones (as in a
kind of sauce), the young man,
extraordinarily
rich, abundant breasts, a
tendency to breakfast
in a sperm egg, perhaps?

Regarding this, I make
her look like Satan, or
is it that (it is) that
panic will spread through the
scattered knots of people
who read this idea?

She learned how to put out
(and in!), column of black,
curly hair. Meat man: "Oh
my mastiff! You put out
too, and the sex was like
a walk in Lebanon."

Dashed painful, "I just love
the little crises that
are worn together!" A
lot of alcohol, the
fine cheeses, fruit and strong
woman with scorpions.

Note: "Oh no!" Once she has
lain down with Miguel and
zucchini. Dolls creep me
out... booming sound, like one
thing to people who had
one. Sarah palin, too.

------------------------------------------

Good, Positive and Uncomplicated
Sat Aug 29 14:43:03 2009

What better quality,
promise technology,
promise driver floppy
is inspirational.
Yet another way to
be free! Let children be

children, and feed on my
machine, configure it
to the taste of the soul.
His intercourse with a
single screen, she ensnared
mankind with the stock in

the womb. Egg after an
informal survey, it's
synopsis is printed
as OK, or not good
with bad apples, the way
my new favorite thing

is good, positive and
uncomplicated, but
is not available.
Creating authentic,
consensual, reduced
to be offered, to be

formed and alive. Take it,
everyone has turned. Egg
after a wonderful
platform, no weight, people
with little housing or
food. Easy to get the

latest versions and to
see what harmony, what
is their trade imbalance.
Thus architecture is
called an aggregate if
equal to Rwanda.



Texts:
P. G. Wodehouse, Right Ho, Jeeves
Woods Hutchinson, The Child's Day
VA, Birth Source Text
Various Authors (Ed. EScovel), His $ Hers Sources
Sax Rohmer, The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu
Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Zapatagraphy

1.

If, instead of threatening,
I could have committed. Zapata's

travels were long and fatiguing,
his wanderings were spoiled by the flames,

which shone brightly on the white
plain. A few tears from the bliss

of my friend - I cannot imagine
the sufferings, I wrote to a great mirror.



2.

While the modern system raises
the funeral wail, Zapata strove to act

in a soft voice, and bent wood
and leaves as if under the table.

I dreaded to behold the busy heavens
answer. Learn from land -

Zapata's fundamental idea -
that all these men were his country.



3.

But you are to yield. In my
cloak, papa! An eye. Zapata had

a far different situation.
They were bound. It directed

his steps towards the valley. He
will shine on us as disappearance.

The Purpose - Sat Oct 24 17:29:50 2009

the purpose of the very commonplace ·
in some perspectives · will become extinct ·
the body of a stream · a thimble · some
were covered with a girdle round the head ·
the sea · desire · or the theory of
the water · which upsets the world · a thing
according to the market · complex · some
were treated with a theory of the head ·

the judgment · at the present time a thing
resides in its advances · soon the eye
becomes accustomed to the surface of
the water · and the merit of events
in our systems of desire · to
the ocean · is a small canoe · in which
the eye becomes accustomed to regard
the future as determined · little more ·

the sun · a very low opinion of
the moon · the climate · and a quarter of
a meal · the things obey the theory of
the world in layers on the head · the judge
continued to deny a substance or
foundation · but pretended to expect ·
the boats · the waves · the contemplation of
a fully purified ideal in man ·



Texts:
R.M. Ballantyne, Cannibal Islands
Samuel Butler, Erewhon
Bertrand Russell, Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays

"The Authorship of Generative Art"

I found this short statement of aesthetics from two British artists on AAAARG.ORG this morning that is certainly relevant to our Gnoetic endeavours here. This is an excerpt from Adrian Ward's and Geoff Cox's 2005 essay, "How I Drew One of My Pictures: or, The Authorship of Generative Art":

Although the 'author-god' might be dead (according to Post-Structuralist theory), we are forced to accept this 'death' as an inability to claim the privileged source of meaning or value of a work of art and artist.[2] This is by no means new; there are numerous precedents for collaborative experimentation in creativity and automatism within a history of art-machines, robotics, and deferred authorship: the use of chance by dadaists, and automatism by surrealists, aimed to stimulate spontaneous and collective creative activity and to diminish the significance of the artist. As the creating subject or author has largely been discredited and dematerialised over the years, there is a pressing need to examine new demarcations, and the functions released by this disappearance.[3] Perhaps 'the death of the author' is simply too literal, (too obvious and final) a metaphor to offer a critique of the productive apparatus by which contemporary creative operations using computers are organised and regulated. [emphasis added]

While I find much of their analysis coincides with many of my own ideas about generative, conceptual and/or digital works of art, I cannot agree with their emphasis on the programmer of systems as the primary inheritor of value as author and creator. I agree that "when a programmer develops a generative system, they are engaged in a creative act," as well as that "programming is no less an artform than painting is a technical process;" but to conclude unequivicably that "it is no longer necessary or even desirable to be able to render art as
a final tangible medium, but instead it is more important to program computers to be creative by proxy" overlooks the many possibilities of digital art as well as many of the real examples of digital writing created using computer systems. It also conflates the site of creativity with the act of creativity--something which is definitely not true in many cases with generative and quasi-generative systems designed for artistic production.

Gnoetry is a prime example of this. Much credit an admiration goes to the creative act of programming such a system for artistic use, but this is not the only and final creative act, it is the first; and it is certainly not of greater importance as an aesthetic act than the many others to follow within the program's environment. The act of the creation of such a system is invaluable to the following creative acts, as none of them would have occurred without it; but this is just as true as saying that the creation of cable television is more valuable than the creation of channels and shows to be on it. Jon Stewart and The Daily Show would not have come about without something like Comedy Central being possible within the context of Cable Television, much as individual works of digital art would not exist without the systems (Gnoetry, Project Gutenberg, the Internet, Western Capitalist society) upon which they rely; this does not mean, though, that all comedians should be more concerned with creating new forms of media to work within than in writing comedy.

Furthermore, to dismiss the subjective activity of a human collaborating artist by concluding that "a great deal of these so-called creative decisions made by artists are driven by chance, or other imperceptible influences" and should just be left to random decisions on the part of the machine, is to completely dismiss the importance of choice, as well as the act of "working the system" (exploring glitches or tricks in the program) to bring about an aesthetically and subjectively desirable result. There is something to be said for placing a reasoned or intuitively guided choice above a random one.

Much more could obviously be said about this. Programming may become an indispensible tool for artists and writers soon, either on their own or in collaboration with knowledgable and interested programmers, but wholly generative art will remain only one of the genres of this evolving branch of artistic process. In Gnoetry, one does not simply press play and let the system create the end result. The perception and subjectivity of the collaborating artist is at the heart of the gnoem's authorship just as much as the system is. Models such as Gnoetry--human-machine collaborations within a programmed framework--are thus of great importance to the development of a digital aesthetic that marries the artist's creative will with computer processes. I hope that as more writers come to use programs like Gnoetry, the truly unique approach of each writer will come to be seen as crucial to the evaluation of their work.

The Holy - Sun Oct 18 17:22:54 2009

the holy laughing and the bodies on
the grass · a spasm of amusements · call
the human future · dinner was attached ·
the trailing glory of the trees · a pause ·
a magic powder · solid · put behind
a silly ass · the sills were stretched · amen ·
the recreation of the trees beyond
the thicket · there · the choicest of delight ·

the bushes came · unsettled · squealing with
the surplus · writhing in the ashes of
the green beyond · the bark · towards the hill
behind the multitude · the bodies had
arranged a luncheon and a bridge · a fine
selection · oh · the moon · in order that
the ass · the frenzy with the virtues of
a breakfast · with a dog in gratitude ·

the human save in heaven · raving of
the kitchen and the countryside · the trees
beyond the food · the highest hill behind
the ladies to enjoy · a blessing and
a corpse · the kingdom to the stomach · and
the ass · the present · do according to
the sunny corner of existence · drink
the trailing glory of the future · ha ·



Texts:
Fannie Louise Apjohn, The Enchanted Island
H. G. Wells, The Island of Dr. Moreau
Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra

The Fundamental - Fri Oct 16 18:52:08 2009

the fundamental notion of bamboo ·
prolongs the smaller waterfalls · reversed
in space · engaged in time · becoming · that
the habit of perception is a more
annoying one · in rude progression · laid
in alternating layers of bamboo ·
elated with the light in hand · prolongs
the contemplation of the gulf beneath ·

reprinted from the kernel of the great
pacific ocean · take a number is
correct · the polished surface of bamboo ·
the points · unchanging · this perspective with
the wood · a bath in metaphysics · and
a quarter thick · the kernels of the faint
reflection of a tree · concerning which
appears · permitted to exaggerate ·

the sea a swiftness · and the small cascades ·
in one perspective to another · as
a given thing in life · the harbour at
the centre of the torrent · which appear
in their effects · consisting of the world ·
the whole apparent intuition · is
a long ascent in introspection · or
a bath in dreams · until the monsters sleep ·



Texts:
Bertrand Russell, Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays
Herman Melville, Typee
R.M. Ballantyne, Cannibal Islands

The Fruits - Wed Oct 7 18:16:13 2009

the fruits in conversation · and engaged
in alternation · pimples and the stars ·
conceited · went among the latter parts ·
exceeding bright · in solitude · a man
in riding trousers and complete · a good
example of the sacred with delight ·
a more delightful prospect · there were on
the earth in such a manner wholly free ·

in these results · a feeling was · unlike
the methods of perfection · then the more
direct · the free possession of the form ·
the execution of salvation and
the rawness and the most auspicious · to
the latter as hypothesis · upon
conditions very advantageous · which
were to confer together premature ·

the real · in many parts · exceeding bright ·
in all the burden and delusion · to
believe the feelings of the time · a stone
in paradise · a little strained · sometimes
the realization of the latter parts ·
the smallest ever known · the children of
the other parts · a dwarf · because the least
idea of the meats in paradise ·



Texts:
Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels
Jack London, South Sea Tales
William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience

Zapatagraphy

This is the preliminary work for a new series I've started. For this project I'm using Wittgenstein, G. Stein, and Frankenstein in conjunction with my own research on Emiliano Zapata, the Mexican revolutionary, trying to tease out resonances. The final project, as envisioned, would pair the gnoetry poems with snippets of Zapata's story, along with my own ruminations on love, the internet, memory, the role of the leftist intellectual, and the specter of Obama. I have, as you will see, replaced some of the pronouns given to me by gnoetry with Zapata's name, other than that they remain as given.


1

What is one bottle? One is
only the use of brackets. Zapata

did not feel the future. With
trembling steps, as sometimes they

were. Such a red is in the centre
of Switzerland; it has a

sash. Snow fell into his hands, and
being overbearing, withdrew.



2

Young men should be possible
to suggest wounding, incapable

of the stimulation of coming
to be heard amid the streets,

in spite of everything. They
all have felt, as if a pen held by

all, as I feel. Zapata performed the
service of showing that the sea

roared; and this was left me -
no, not the facts, a resemblance.



3

Zapata was small, bound close
by the divisions in his

body. He worked up her veil, and she
knelt, ascertaining

his authority. I could not help
being struck by the greatest fear,

lest my fire should be reserved to
discover him a villain.



4

Zapata looked patient yet sad. His
limbs failed him as he walked.

It gave pleasure to his
protectors. He was dressed

in possibility, a blot
upon a world in stretches. My

voice was indignant; my lips to such
a man, an old one with a strange

multiplicity. Yet why
do we dream? My country was copper.



5

White and color and more
is gone; Zapata must not be

virtuous. If it be written
down, it was an answer.

We should have a daughter,
but I cannot consent.



6

I sing and I sing, continuing
being a habit. I write a

few minutes, and one. The point where
the flowers of spring bloomed in the

streets of the complete expression, there
were women weeping around;

and in fact, this was it until
the moon and the end of sitting.



7

We received a map of the
torture. The sound proceeded from land.



8

Fear overcame Zapata; the
caves of the things he was not.

To an echo and more, more
than half his misfortune - he was

to become an offering, the
only object that harnesses.

A child, in arranging
the paint shows that culture is this.



9

Thus ended the day. Zapata's mind
is now dead yet found a dwelling.

Come on horseback, for no man
is a bare perpendicular rock!



10

A few years will chill your
ship. A curtain is a

burst of explanation, and a
colored sky a spectacle. You

will then have a sense, and make it true.
So then the last column by

itself will be soft, not so stern
as romantic. The system

is washing, the hierarchies
are contradictory.


11

An hour passed, and soon
my mind, and yet, in the

mouth is in an order. One could
be one, it is true, sensibly

in mathematics. It cannot be
more. The expression is what

will say it is not telling
everything, in a certain

sense, that from the dark red
trees, all this makes that sun.


12

When he returned to us, he was
bigger, not merely a

petty experimentalist.
He did not feel for those

on the top of affairs
who could perceive his calm

in left over bundles.
I sat up much longer,

conversing with his desires
like a flood of strangers.



Texts:
Shelley, 1Frankenstein
Gertrude, 2SteinTender
Wittgenstein, 4Wittgen
Gertrude, 3SteinPicasso

The Limits - Fri Oct 2 19:50:27 2009

the limits of successive moments of
expression · by the absolute maintains
relations · first · the nature of a form ·
the full extent permitted by the first
beginning of compliance · is alive ·
in danger of forgetting · are employed
in dealing with a contradiction · and
the desperate effort to evaporate ·

the limit of a moment · longing to
occur in other words · the wildness and
the brightness of the mood · in danger of
ignoring · there were fluids pent within
the proper bounds · a contradiction is
a mere anachronism and depressed ·
a buoyant disposition · and upon
a higher penetration · is alive ·

a chain · the limit of a body at
the object of affection · feeling is
the same in all directions · and reward
in making no results · the glory of
the action · or the fashion of affairs ·
complying with the power of a thing
originates · in one · together with
the others · something is articulate ·



Texts:
William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience
Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
Fannie Louise Apjohn, The Enchanted Island