Empty Mirror

a literary magazine

  • About
    • About Empty Mirror
    • Get in Touch
    • Support EM
    • Colophon
  • Submit
  • Contributors
  • Essays
  • On Literature
  • Poetry
  • Reviews
  • Art
  • Interviews
  • Beat
    • Beat Generation
    • Ted Joans Lives!
  • +
    • Fiction
    • Music & Film
    • News
    • On Writing
    • Book Collecting

For Ted Joans: poems and a collage by Steve Dalachinsky

Steve Dalachinsky

Steve Dalachinsky - Ted Joans collage

Le Corbeau et Le Courbet – for Ted Joans
(written at Café Le Roquet – Paris 1/30/06)

today the light is so bright
diffused light tracing det snoaj
like a backward shadow
@ the origin of the world
memoir of a pr. of bronze balls
too cold to fuck along the insane river
where the rhino dwells / or say hello Mr. Joans
as the sun writes these shadows on my page
facing his face privately @ Le Rouquet
where all’s o.k.
& the madame you spoke of in your pomes
still receives the l’addition
as i subtract nuage your hand wrote each
curlicued exquisite corps/e
(dis arm me o’ poesie accrued)
while the bogus suggest how others should play with form &
order
on Rodin’s aching back

.

( B a l l s AK )

the 2 young femoiselles actually ask if we mind if they smoke
i say “yes but it is not against the law here”
wishing now we sat with your NO SMOKING sign
to shove into their pretty faces
as they proceed to pollute their lungs & ours
as we sweat on the opposite side from where you sat every day
as my overpriced café creme arrives

Mr. Sun begins to move behind the blding across the street
as Mr. Slick & the politicians shove their dicks into the mouths
of the people & i wrap my mouth around my omelette
parmantier
& Mr. Sun disappears as you would
leaving its reflection behind as you would
leaving its mark on the street as you would
spreading its soft lyrical light here on St. Germain

& i ask the waiter “did you know Ted Joans – he sat in that
corner there”
pointing to the far end of the café
& he says in french “yes he’s been dead 2 yrs.”
as we both simultaneously raise 2 fingers
& i say in “frenglish” – “he was moi gran ami”

& as he cleans our table i stare across the light stained blvd.
at the fancy soap shop remembering the little mouse
she & i saw scurrying frantically about in its window one
warm dark night
way back when.

Joans

has 10 Picassos in Timbuktu
says the sand dunes in the sahara are
sensual & soft
refers to that desert as “she”
carries secrets in his water sack
& his passport around his neck
travels around the world
the way most folks travel around
the block
has 2 hats in spain
waiting to be broken in
says he lost half his lps in the Niger River
loves black velvet &
sweet potato pie
knew Bird, Breton &
Kerouac
seems he knows everyone
even me.

had dinner in my apt.
last nite.

‘JAZZ WAS HIS RELIGION – ALL OF TED JOANS & NO MORE’

it’s saturday morning
i’m 1/2 asleep yet fully awake
i glance @ the clock it’s 9:11
i stare into its face until it becomes 9:12
tomorrow is mother’s day
it’s supposed to rain
it will be raining in rain town i consider people still piss on trees
a slight cool breeze comes in thru the window
along with the sound of pneumatic drills (ruffling the curtains & my ears)
always deconstructing reconstructing
busy people are some damned busy they still get lost in lost town
i’ll have to make more phone calls write more poems
this would be a good time to have e-mail enter the modern age
what does it all mean? TED IS DEAD
ted is dead there’ll be no more nerve endings & sweet potato
pies no more sudden visits no more trips to museums
ted is dead & bob kaufman was jewish & baraka was leroi once
ted’s dead & there’ll be no more asking for favors no more
borrowing money no more eating in cheap restaurants no more leaving things in
my pad anymore
no more TEDUCATION no more nuts from Economy Candy no more tours of hidden
places
no more wide-eyed crazy excitement no more aardvarks &
rhinoceros
no more exquisite corpses no more world traveler
paris mexico timbuktu n.y. California & deep space too (no
more Black Velvets)
no more pow-wows elegance friendship on
demand demanding friendship
no more ultimate HIPSTER SURREALIST BEAT JAZZ SOUL
people still piss in the street & act like no one sees them here in
piss town
where only his ashes are left to be scattered around the world
there’ll be no more fire escapes no more NO BREAD NO TED
no more private NO SMOKING signs
the hands of the clock keep moving & i move closer to sleep
than to waking
ted is dead he was born on the day that white america claimed its INDEPENDENCE
he died surrounded by its history & the history of the entire
animal race
he died a rich poor man self-made legend one of a kind
he was the entire 20th century
of his time in his time ahead of his time
ted was the beginning & the end of time
ted was he was ted is he is ted’s dead he’s dead ted lives he
lives
TED JOANS LIVES!

Share on TwitterShare on Facebook

Steve Dalachinsky

Poet/collagist Steve Dalachinsky (September 26, 1946 - September 16, 2019) was born in Brooklyn after the last big war and managed to survive lots of little wars.

His latest CDs are The Fallout of Dreams with Dave Liebman and Richie Beirach (Roguart 2014) and ec(H)o-system with the French art-rock group, the Snobs (Bambalam 2015).

His most recent books include Where Night and Day Become One: The French Poems / A Selection 1983-2017 (208 great weather for MEDIA), Fools Gold (2014 feral press), flying home, a collaboration with German visual artist Sig Bang Schmidt (Paris Lit Up Press 2015) and The Invisible Ray (Overpass Press – 2016) with artwork by Shalom Neuman.

Author: Steve Dalachinsky Tags: poetry, Steve Dalachinsky, Ted Joans Category: Poetry, Ted Joans July 21, 2017

You might also like:

San Francisco
David Gitin: 5 From San Francisco in the Sixties
whitman ii collage - d.e.
Free Speech Cantos – Michael Ceraolo
Gloria Avner and David Gitin
Remembering poet David Gitin
zuanich two / image: d. enck
Three poems by Linda E. Chown

Comments

  1. John says

    July 28, 2017 at 12:11 am

    Dig it, Steve,
    Yr Ted Joans
    Poem (s)

    Live inside
    Empty Mirror
    Now

    It’s 2:30 a.m.
    somewhere
    in a garret

    In central
    Mass-

    a-
    chu-
    setts..

    I like
    them
    a lot .

    And what
    a privelege
    it must have
    been to have
    known the man
    in the flesh

    before he
    became
    ashes

    Scattered
    to the four
    winds

    Around
    the world
    like you say:

    ” paris mexico timbuktu n.y.
    California & deep space too ”

    Whew!

    TED JOANS LIVES!

    No wonder
    he left this
    country

    Time
    and
    again

    And there
    you are
    In his
    cafe

    Where the
    waiter remem-
    bers him sitting
    there in his corner

    contemplating
    aardvarks and
    rhinoceros.

    And my copy
    of Black Pow
    Wow remains

    In storage
    Leaking
    Light

    from its
    pages…

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I accept the Privacy Policy

 

DONATE TO BLACK LIVES MATTER

BLACK LIVES MATTER

The EM newsletter

Receive fresh poetry, reviews, essays, art, and literary news every Wednesday!


Empty Mirror

Established in 2000 and edited by Denise Enck, Empty Mirror is an online literary magazine that publishes new work each Friday.

Each week EM features several poems each by one or two poets; reviews; critical essays; visual art; and personal essays.

Subscribe Submissions Support

Recent features

  • My Father’s Map
  • On Waiting
  • Seeing Las Meninas in Madrid, 1994
  • Visual poems from 23 Bodhisattvas by Chris Stephenson
  • Historical Punctum: Reading Natasha Trethewey’s Bellocq’s Ophelia and Native Guard Through the Lens of Roland Barthes’s Camera Lucida
  • Panic In The Rear-View Mirror: Exploring The Work of Richard Siken and Ann Gale
  • “Art has side effects,” I said.

Books

Biblio
© 2000–2023 D. Enck / Empty Mirror.
Copyright of all content remains with its authors.
Privacy Policy · Privacy Tools · FTC disclosures