Two Dada 'Cut-Up' Poems

Rearranging His Office Eight Months After His Death

So here I am in play,

in the window the sun

pouring through the trees

on the pretty street.

I have this morning

the essential power.

This will be —

not left until summer.

Not that closed door

for fear

(never look out,

especially at night).

Around all his boxes 

of notes and papers

it was more and more

crowded; it doubled,

everything swivelling

at right angles.

Outside the door,

walking got harder.

Quiet cul-de-sac …

the cars come slowly.

His desk and table

are long gone.

Intention

White light

is clear motion.

Follow. Find.

Allow this warm sun

through the crown

sink into you

and body

wedged into place

to settle light.

See the whole.

Around it flows, down,

into the earth,

long, as he

nodding off

crashed into that

table  — and

there are two beds

as day beds between

body visitors that

support here times

with the essential.

My head nearly down,

or on a chair,

morning suits me.

Spent a lot of time

a minute ago

to this day

making my home

as I finished

coming in to sleep.

Just allow

the beds, light, the rare, the past,

the intention.

I have what I

had been,

done

though not

your body

Andrew.

And out loud to

myself as if inviting

your body into lying.

Then this

had no need,

in this pleasant space

in our real beds.…

Pang!

That is the past.

Even spoke

him to admit

(more).

Is where it was

causes a slight

unwell and

your head —

Well, what do you know?

They should function.

On to the desk. That’s what

kept it fuctional!

So I’ll, on one of,

one that for so very …

Ah well now, I …

as in for Andrew …

and have a stab.

(It had evidently been

have overnight.)

Fell apart as I removed it.

Any little office snooze

gives relief and soft …

Warm

I am light form

and

it is red,

red through to the

and out the centre

away by the Earth,

as a day

became more and more.

Submitted for dVerse Form For All: Dada poems with scissors.

My text was one of my blog entries, a bit under one and a half printed pages long. The subject was the same as the title of the first poem above. The first page of my text provided this first poem. I used a black marker rather than scissors, to block out all but the words and phrases I wanted to use. Then I rearranged the order until it all made some kind of sense.

But I'm not sure if making logical sense is very Dada, so for the second one I cut it up with scissors as instructed. I soon got bored with chopping it up horizontally, so changed to vertically — but not in straight lines, as I cut around words and phrases. I had printed it on scrap paper with someone else's text on the back, so for this poem I also used what was on the back. As I didn't cut with relation to that text, some of those words had become mere fragments, unusable, but I used what I could. This was a much more playful exercise. I still tried for some kind of bizarre logic, but it wasn't possible to make much real sense out of the cut-up pieces. One instance of the word 'intention' from the second text appeared in capital letters, so I chose that as title for my second piece.

See also next post for computer-generated versions of the above, LOL.