Poems By Mark Andrew Lunt

Lignes de Bataille:

transgressive haiku for georges bataille and other philosophers of excess

the[1] hai[2]ku[3] has[4] been[5]

ex[6]haust[7]ed[8] as[9] a[10] means[11] to[12]

ex[13]press[14] my[15] love[16] for[17] you[18]

---

[1] syllable one, line one

[2] syllable two, line one

[3] syllable three, line one

[4] syllable four, line one

[5] syllable five, line one

[6] syllable six, line two begins

[7] syllable seven, line two

[8] syllable eight, line two

[9] syllable nine, line two

[10] syllable ten, line two

[11] syllable eleven, line two

[12] syllable twelve, line two

[13] syllable thirteen, line three, and we still conform to the haiku format, but something is happening…

[14] syllable fourteen, line three … centuries of tension are slowly revealing themselves…

[15] syllable fifteen, line three… the author makes his/her presence/absence known…

[16] syllable sixteen, line three… need I say more? Perhaps…

[17] syllable seventeen, line three… the decisive shift to the border/terrain of formal crisis…

[18] syllable eighteen, line three… the transgressive syllable, the transgressive object… You

Acéphale

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Donatien Alphonse François Sade Considers Marriage

she wears her filth
and shame
like a new bridal gown
for all to admire.

vomit stains the veil
and his vile breath pollutes
the room.

a urine-stained train
follows her like a beaten dog
or child
covered in sores
a precession of lice
crawling, supplicating

crook-back’d
her posture
calls to mind a Beckett hero(ine)

so beautiful a prize
to bed,
spread and wed

First Love

on the borderline
between
sense and senselessness

where revulsion
spreads faster than
a high school rumor

or a fire in the projects

angry murmurs
depredations & threats
issued from our mouths

like divine revelations

Home

home is where the wounded go to die:
        where memories are mortgaged,
        refinanced and foreclosed

        with cold efficiency
the stuffed animal, the dried flowers
       and the battered chair
       hold the stench of failure
and a single carpet coffee stain
suggests a moment of levity, of laughter,

       or violence

where ice forms
tiny constellations of despair
on window panes.

and summer kept us cold
with reminders of past indignities

      and tears in
      the fabric of life

where now is the
nourishing plenitude of emptiness?

In Difference

the pendulum

predictable

as the bowed string

vibrates

to a shared law

         with charmless frequency

we know such laws

          but cannot abide (by) them

Towards a New Cartography

Towards a New Cartography of the City

sitting quietly
in the dank, disused doorway
he spends his days
constructing
elaborate Venn Diagrams
that map
the complexities of his situation

occasionally
he will take the time
to carefully explain
his reasoning
to anyone willing to listen,
insult, or ignore

each insult
generates a new situation,
a new theory,
a new diagram

Waiting

As if to prove
Old Heraclitus wrong,
Today
The river was
Still,

Holding memories
For the return

On the Death of an Iraqi Child

her skin is as
paper, parchment, papyrus

a fragile surface to be inscribed
bearing traces of many histories

easily damaged, defaced and destroyed
without conscience

by those who would de-scribe history